


Tomatita

by Black_Rose_Authoress



Series: Pleasantville [6]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Children, Gen, Genderbending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Original Character(s), Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-04
Updated: 2010-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-26 09:44:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 37,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2647364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Rose_Authoress/pseuds/Black_Rose_Authoress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Antonio and Lovina's childhood adventures. Involving pirate ships, and tea parties, and the destruction of fancy dresses... Prequel to 'And It's Supposed to be the Day of Love'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is what we'll consider the first major work of the Pleasantville series. As with the rest of the early works, there are some aspects of this story that were later changed as more character development happened, although less so than the stories that came before it. So just be aware of that. I think that most of the changes really just involved the original characters (the parents, Big Mike, etc.)
> 
> It's hard to write notes for stories that I wrote years ago. xD

"Heracles! Quit sleeping! The first mate can't be sleeping when he's steering the ship! And you're not supposed to have cats onboard either. They'll eat the parrots."

The younger Greek child opened one eye to glare at his playmate and tugged his kitten tighter into his grip. "Can too. They always have cats onboard ships to eat the rats."

Sadiq, as captain of this crew, did not appreciate being proved wrong. Especially by Heracles, who he had never really liked all that much and hadn't even wanted to play with. Let alone let him be first mate. But Arthur, Antonio, and Francis were being the bad guys and he couldn't just have a captain without a crew. Which was how he'd ended up with annoying Heracles and quiet Kiku. "Well…even if they did, then the cat should only have one eye or a missing foot." He pointed accusingly toward the little ball of fluff sitting on his first mate's lap. "They aren't supposed to be fluffy!"

Heracles flashed him a murderous glare and cuddled it closer. "Not her fault that she's fluffy."

"And it's a girl cat! Girl cats can't be on pirate ships!"

"Who said?"

"Hey!" Arthur called from the sandbox that he, Francis, and Antonio had designated as their pirate ship. "If you keep arguing, we're gonna attack your ship." He scowled and waved his toy sword around in what was an attempt at a menacing fashion.

He was rather proud of that sword. It had been a present sent to him from his father, along with a real captain's hat with a big red feather on top that he was wearing now cocked down over one eye. Partly for effect and partly just because it was a little too big to sit properly on his head.

Sadiq immediately jumped onto the top of the slide attached to the swing set they were using as their ship. "Full speed ahead!"

And neither of them moved. Kiku was petting Heracles' kitten, which was now curled up on his lap, while Heracles just watched him as he sat on one of the swings and kicked his feet distractedly.

"You two are the worst crew ever!" Sadiq exclaimed irritably.

"Hey! I wanna play!"

Great. Sadiq groaned as he turned toward the familiar voice. It was  _her_ again. He turned, brandishing his own stick-sword out toward the little girl now standing at the bottom of the ladder. "No! No girls allowed! I'm Captain and what I say goes!"

Lovina was standing with her hands on her hips, glaring up at him with a pout. "I wanna play!"

"No girls allowed and besides, you can't be a pirate in a dress!" He pointed toward her again with the sword, motioning toward her frilly green dress, white stockings, black Mary Janes, and green ribbon threaded through her dark strands. "Go back and have a tea party with your sister!"

The only person more annoying than Heracles in Sadiq's eyes was this little pain. She was always showing up when they were in the middle of an exciting adventure of searching for buried treasure or fighting evil aliens or being master thieves. And she'd always demand to play with them, her hands on her hips and her expression murderous.

Really, it wasn't their problem that she didn't have any friends. They shouldn't be forced to play with her all the time.

"I don't wanna play with Feli! I wanna play pirates!" She stomped a foot into the grass to accentuate her point. "'Sides, she's already playing tea party with the stupid potato."

"Ludwig is playing tea party with Feli?" Francis suddenly purred from beside Sadiq. How he had gotten there was anybody's guess. Francis had a natural talent at sneaking up on people and invading their personal space. "Does Gill know about this?"

Lovina eyed him warily, scooting away slightly. "I don't know. Feli begged the stupid potato to play."

Francis made a mental note to let Gill in on this later. Blackmail was always useful.

"Sadiq, let her play," Antonio remarked, as he and Arthur made their way from their 'pirate ship' to the enemy's. Arthur looked rather irritated at having the game interrupted and kicked the swing set just for good measure. "It won't hurt anything."

And that was also why he hated Lovina. Antonio would  _always_ stand up for her, and Antonio, unfortunately, had this likability around him that made it hard for anyone else to disagree with him.

Didn't mean he wouldn't try. "No! We agreed forever ago that girls couldn't play with us!" Except Gill, but she didn't count, since she was basically a boy anyway and she wouldn't hesitate to use her fists…and boots…and teeth…and whatever else happened to be on hand…if you tried to stop her from doing what she wanted.

Antonio had moved next to Lovina and had his arms around her now, flashing Sadiq his most pitiful expression as she struggled unsuccessfully to free herself. "Come on, Sadiq, what if we let her play on our team?"

Arthur and Francis both flashed the girl slightly weary looks, but didn't bother arguing. You couldn't win against Antonio when Lovina was involved, so you might as well just go with it.

"No." He was already being forced to play with his most hated rival  _and_ their pirate ship had a fluffy girl kitten on it. That was enough giving in for today.

"Just let her play, idiot," Heracles added to the argument. He didn't really care either way, but if he got the opportunity to oppose Sadiq, then he'd agree with anything. "Antonio said she'd play on his team."

"I agree with Heracles-san," Kiku offered in his quiet, polite voice, as he continued to stroke the purring kitten in his lap.

"Well, I'm not playing with a stupid girl!" Sadiq exclaimed irritably. Why in the world did everyone always gang up on him like this? "I'll go play with my other friends!"

"What other friends?" Heracles questioned without hesitation.

"I have plenty of other friends!" Kind of. Okay, not really. Why would he be playing with these guys in the first place if he had other friends?

Heracles snorted in disbelief. "Sure, you do."

Antonio looked horrified—he was the only one—at Sadiq's remark. "Don't leave! She won't bother you. She'll just play with us." He glanced down at the still squirming girl and brushed a hand through her dark curls. "Right, Lovi?"

"Bastard, let go~!" she squealed, attempting to free her arms so she could hit him.

"You can't play if you hit, Lovi," he warned, effectively stopping her attempts at attacking him. "Promise that you'll leave Sadiq alone if we let you play. No hitting or yelling at him, okay?"

She glared over at the person in question and then glanced back up at Antonio and nodded once. "'Kay."

Antonio immediately grinned and squeezed her tighter. "Aww~, you're so cute, Lovi~"

"Fine, as long as you keep her away from me," Sadiq finally agreed, flashing her an irritated glare. Stupid girl.

Antonio immediately nodded and released her, grabbing her hand and tugging her toward their ship. "I promise, Sadiq. Come on, Lovi."

Arthur gave the swing set another kick, just for good measure and then followed Antonio back to the sandbox, while Francis flashed Sadiq a less-than-innocent smirk before skipping after them.

He really needed new friends.

~.~.~

"Lovina! Lovina!"

The pirates all glanced up from what they had been doing—which happened to be digging around one of the park's trees in search for buried treasure—at the sudden call. Arthur was the first to react, probably due to his dislike of getting into trouble, hurriedly dropping his shovel and jumping in front of it to hide it and the rather large hole that they'd created. The others took a moment, but followed his example in covering their excavations from the adult. All except Lovina, who just glanced up, scowled in the general direction of the voice, and then returned to digging beside the hole with the little spade that Antonio had managed to scrounge up for her.

"Lovina!"

An older woman suddenly walked into sight, glaring around at the surroundings with an expression surprisingly similar to Lovina's usual scowl. She had dark hair that was a few shades darker than Lovina's and was wearing a grey suit that only made her look more imposing and slightly scary. One of her hands was gripping Lovina's younger sister's hand, almost dragging her along after her. Feliciana was stumbling as she tried to keep up. She was dressed in a dress that almost matched Lovina's, except that hers was pink instead of green…and also happened to be much cleaner.

The boys all glanced back at Lovina, suddenly realizing that Lovina's mom was probably not going to be happy about the fact that her daughter was covered in dirt.

And when they said covered, they meant covered… Her formerly white tights were now almost entirely brown, she'd lost one of her shoes somewhere, her dress was ripped and caked with dirt, her ribbon was gone, and her face and hair were both smudged with mud.

Immediately every eye turned to Antonio, who glanced over at the woman nervously and then knelt down beside Lovina. "Hey, Lovi. Your mom is here."

"Don't wanna go," she replied without even looking up.

"You know that she's gonna be mad when she sees how dirty you are." He knelt down and tried to rub some of the dirt off her cheek. It only succeeded in smearing it around more.

"Don't wanna go home!"

"Lovina!" And now said mother marched toward the boys, who parted out of her way as quickly as possible, not wanting to anger her anymore than she already was.

She froze in horror when she saw Lovina sitting in the dirt, still digging away with her spade, while Antonio fruitlessly attempted to clean her up. He glanced up when he noticed that her footsteps had silenced and immediately blanched. "Ah, Mrs. Vargas…"

"What have you done to my daughter!?" she screeched furiously, immediately bending down and dragging Lovina to her feet. "She's absolutely filthy!"

"Uh, she just wanted to play…"

Lovina attempted to kick at her mother and break free. "Don't wanna go! I wanna play pirates!"

Lovina's mother looked absolutely sickened by the state that her daughter was in. She flashed Antonio a furious glare. "I've told you before that she isn't allowed to play in the dirt! Now her dress is ruined!"

"Let go~!"

"Mommy? I wanna play too," Feliciana suddenly remarked, tugging on her mother's hand as she eyed the giant hole that the boys had managed to dig.

Antonio was pretty sure he'd never received a dirtier look in his life. And he spent a lot of his time with Lovi, so that was saying something. She immediately whirled around, almost knocking both of the girls off their feet.

"No dinner for you tonight, Lovina."

"No!"

"But, Mommy…" Feliciana whined in her sister's defense.

"And if you aren't quiet, Feliciana, you're not going to get any either."

Feliciana started to sniffle unhappily, as she glanced over her shoulder to where Antonio and the others were standing. Antonio offered a sad, apologetic shrug. Then she looked back up at her mother, not wanting to risk missing dinner by crying.

Lovina, on the other hand, was screeching angrily, attempting to break free from her mother so she could return to her game. "Let go! Let go!"

"Mrs. Vargas." Here, Antonio spoke, receiving disbelieving looks from the rest of the boys. Was he suicidal or something? Feliciana and Lovina's mom was probably the scariest adult they'd ever met. "I could take Lovi back to my house and then bring her home for you. My mom's really good at sewing. She might be able to fix the dress."

The older woman flashed him a suspicious glare, and then glanced down at the still squirming little girl. "I seriously doubt this can be fixed."

"I could ask my mom at least. She's really good."

Mrs. Vargas stared down at Lovina again, seeming to try to decide whether she wanted to deal with a screaming, crying daughter for the rest of the night. Eventually, she sighed and released her arm. "Fine. Have your mother bring her back before dusk."

Lovina immediately took the opportunity given and ran to Antonio, grabbing his hand and then hiding behind his back. Antonio glanced back at her with an expression mixing exasperation and fondness. "All right, Mrs. Vargas. I promise."

"And this had better not happen again, Antonio."

"It won't. I promise."

With that, Mrs. Vargas nodded and then turned, pulling Feliciana with her. "Come on, Feli. You still have to clean up your tea party."

"Aww, but Mommy…"

"I'll make pasta for dinner tonight if you clean it up without whining."

If there was one way to make Feliciana instantly quiet, that was it. It was a fact that many people considered one of the most important things to learn during your life.


	2. Chapter 2

Antonio found it absolutely adorable how Lovina was still rather terrified of going on the bus. She was often so frightened that she'd spend the entire ride watching everyone with huge eyes and clinging tightly to his hand. He found it incredibly cute, but chose to not point this out to her. If he did, she'd usually let go of him and spend the rest of their trip pouting out of the window.

Still, it was really cute. Especially when she leaned against his arm and started to drift off. They spent most of the ride like this, him staring out of the window as she napped on him. They were some of the last passengers on the bus by the time it reached his stop, the end of a winding dirt road that would eventually lead out to his family's farm.

"Come on, Lovi," he gently nudged her awake, taking her hand and leading her to the exit. Once he'd reached the door, he released her hand, jumped down to the road, and then turned to lift her down onto the dirt.

She, typically, just ignored him and jumped down on her own, almost losing her balance when she landed.

Typical, stubborn, independent Lovina.

He intertwined their fingers again, tugging her toward the road. "Hey, maybe Madre will have made some snacks for us. Would you like that, Lovi?"

She didn't answer, although he could see interest flicker through her eyes at the mention of food. She sped up a little, although he slowed in order to keep her at a more reasonable pace, matching her shorter strides so she wouldn't have to run to keep up as they headed toward the house.

"Antonio!" His mother's voice came almost as soon as they were in view of the house. She was standing in the front yard, hanging up the wash on their clothesline. She hesitated when she noticed him, resting her basket on her hip as she frowned disapprovingly. "I was looking for you earlier and…oh…" she suddenly seemed to notice Lovina and immediately smiled brightly instead. "Hola, Lovina." She frowned again, although not as deeply, "what did you do to your pretty dress?" Her eyes rose to Antonio, obviously expecting an explanation.

"We were playing pirates, Mamá, and Lovi wanted to help us dig up the treasure."

His mother sighed at that answer and eyed the dress as she shook her head. "You should know better than to let her do something like that when's she wearing such a pretty dress."

"Can you fix it, Mamá?"

She sighed again and motioned for Lovina to come forward. "Sí, sí. I can fix it. Did Señora Vargas see it?"

Antonio winced at the memory of Lovina's mother. "Sí."

"I imagine she wasn't happy." Lovina had moved from Antonio's side at the invitation from his mother and now reached up toward her. She immediately set her basket on the ground and took the offered hand. "I just finished making churros. Would you like some while I wash your dress?"

Lovina immediately nodded in response. "With chocolate?"

"Of course." She glanced back toward Antonio with a raised eyebrow. "I shouldn't let you have any, but hopefully having Señora Vargas angry with you should be enough to stop you from doing something like this ever again."

Antonio immediately nodded in agreement. "Sí, Mamá."

~.~.~

"Mamá makes the best churros ever."

Lovina glanced up at Antonio from her churro, which she'd been preparing to dip into her dish of chocolate. After a moment of just staring at him, she nodded in agreement and dipped it before taking a bite on the end. "Mhm."

Antonio was used to talking while eating, something that Lovina apparently didn't believe in, as she hadn't said a word since the plate had been set in front of her. Which was why he was conversing about the deliciousness of churros while the girl ate and watched him. He opened his mouth, about to continue, when they were interrupted by a loud voice from behind them. "Hey, Tonio!"

Both instantly turned toward the startling interruption, slightly surprised to see an albino girl sitting on the lowest branch of his mother's favourite apple tree.

"Gill? What are you doing here?"

After awhile, you got rather used to Ludwig's older sister's habit of suddenly appearing out of thin air. She did it all of the time at Lovina and Feliciana's house or Francis's house or Arthur's house, but this was rather out of the way, even for her.

The girl was swinging her combat-boot clad feet back and forth through the air, apparently nonplussed by his surprise. After a few moments of amusing herself in this way, she moved so her legs were hooked over the branch and swung down so she was hanging upside down. Apparently not caring or remembering that she was wearing a skirt and was now showing her black and white panties to the world.

"I skipped out on piano lessons," she replied, attempting to twist her neck around so she could stare at them from her position. "Roddy was off with his mutter at some recital or something like that, so I couldn't bother him and it was boring to be there with only his stick-in-the-mud vater. Hi, Lovi." She attempted to wave, but found it hard to perform the proper motion while upside down.

Lovina eyed the other girl suspiciously and moved her plate of churros and dish of chocolate closer to herself. "Mine."

Gill finally seemed to decide that it was too difficult to hold a conversation while upside down, so she pulled herself back up onto the branch and then hopped down, heading over to stand behind Lovina, leaning over to grab at one of the churros.

Lovina immediately slapped her hand away and covered the plate with her body. "Mine!"

"You can have one of mine, Gill," Antonio offered, pushing the plate toward the girl. "I was almost done anyway."

"But it's more fun to swipe them from Lovi," she complained, although she took a couple of the offered treats and munched down on them while flashing Lovina a wide grin. "So why is she wearing your old clothes, Tonio?"

Antonio glanced toward the younger girl, who was now sending him rather irritated glares. "We were playing pirates and she wanted to help us dig up the treasure."

Gill's smile immediately fell at this revelation and she leaned over to attempt another attack on Lovina's plate in retaliation. She wasn't successful. "You were playing pirates without me?!"

"I thought your madre said that you weren't allowed to play with us on weekends anymore, since you cut your hair."

Gillian scowled at him, reaching up self-consciously to brush at the short, scruffy strands. "…Yeah." She had once had very long, curly, gorgeous platinum strands that her mother loved to fix up in complicated styles at any opportunity; Gill didn't seem to feel much towards them one way or the other. Which was probably why, when she'd gotten gum in her hair after they'd had a bubble blowing competition one weekend (they hadn't been able to decide on the winner, as they hadn't thought far enough ahead to get a judge and Francis and Arthur were both positive that they had won; they almost had a fistfight over it) she'd just decided to cut it out.

Her mother had been furious and banned her from playing with the boys on the weekends. She would have banned them from ever playing together, but it wasn't as if there were many other kids their own age for her to hang out with. But also, she'd forced Gill to take piano lessons from Roderich Edelstein's father. Which she didn't seem to mind too much, besides the fact that she was missing their games, because it gave her the opportunity to bother Roderich outside of school.

Apparently when Roderich's father had told him about the arrangement, the boy had started to cry.

"Buenos días, Gillian!" Antonio's mother suddenly called from the door. She had been coming outside to finish up with her laundry while Lovina's dress soaked, but had stopped when she saw the new visitor. She immediately grinned toward the girl and opened her arms for her to run into.

Gillian immediately took the opportunity and threw herself at the woman. "Guten tag!"

"You haven't come over in a while."

"Mutter is still angry with me for cutting my hair." She snorted unhappily. "It's more awesome short anyway. It's not so annoying."

Antonio's mom smiled slightly at the remark and brushed a finger through the white strands. "I think your hair is beautiful either way, but you should probably ask your madre before you do anything like that again. Now…" She took a step back and started to walk back into the house. "You'd like some churros too, right?"

"Sí," Gillian replied, her heavy German accent marking the word. She bounced once, her combat boots—which she always wore, even to school, and even after receiving multiple detentions for them—stomping against the ground. After the woman left, she immediately turned to Antonio with a wide grin, sitting down on the table beside Lovina, and ruffling the younger girl's curls. "Dude, Tonio, your mom is awesome. And…" She motioned toward herself at the word, "I should know."


	3. Omake #1: Pinkies Out!

"Would you like some more tea, Mr. Ludwig-sir?"

The day had really started out with such potential. How then had he ended up here, sitting at a short table covered with a frilly pink tablecloth, in a chair that he didn't dare rest all his weight on because he was afraid I would break, all while, of course, holding a teacup of some watery beverage that didn't even taste like tea while attempting to act like he was having the time of his life?

"Ah, of course Fel—I mean, Miss Feliciana…"

It probably had something to do with the fact that he'd never learned how to say no to Feli when she turned those big brown eyes on him.

Still. Today had started as a perfect day for him to work on his homework. Gillian had been dragged from the house this morning to her piano lesson, their mom planned on dropping her off and then going grocery shopping, and their dad was holed up in his study with a sign up that said 'Please Only Knock in Case of an Emergency' working on some important project for his job.

However, he'd come downstairs for breakfast and had just started into his plate of sausages when the doorbell rang and he opened it to find Feliciana standing on the front step, hugging a rabbit to her chest.

"Ludwig!" She looked as if she was about to greet him in her usual way of tackling him with a hug, but then seemed to remember that she happened to be holding a rabbit, so she instead just smiled brightly up at him. "Ludwig, wanna play tea party with me?"

You couldn't say no to Feliciana when she asked something like that.

"Uh, I was about to eat breakfast…"

"That's okay." She immediately let herself in, setting the rabbit on the floor. The clean floor that his mother had just mopped the day before.

"Mutter doesn't let us have pets inside the house." Not that Gill ever obeyed that rule—or most rules in general. She'd smuggle her pet chick into the house every day, usually letting it sleep in her room. He had never told their parents about it, though, since he did like the little bird—which Gill had named Gilbird after herself. Besides, Gill would always say when he asked her about it that she didn't like leaving Gilbird outside.

'He gets lonely, Luddy,' and then she'd turn her doe eyes on him. Which, although not as effective as Feliciana's, were still persuasive enough for him to give in without another word.

Maybe he was just way too easily swayed…

Feliciana bent down and hugged the rabbit to her chest before it could hop away, flashing him a slight pout. "But Ludwig~"

Yes, he was definitely too easily swayed by girls turning big watery eyes on him.

"Just make sure it doesn't make a mess." He sighed and sat back down at the table, watching her as she lay on the floor and watched the rabbit explore, pausing every few moments to sit back on its hind legs and look around.

It was hard to really enjoy his sausages when he was nervously watching Feliciana out of the corner of his eye, making sure that she didn't break anything, as she had a tendency to do when she came over. She seemed content to just lay on the floor and play with her rabbit, however, so he finally turned his attention back to his breakfast. Still eating as quickly as possible.

"Where'd you get the rabbit, anyway?" he questioned after he'd finished, brought the dish over to the sink, rinsed it, and put it into the dishwasher. Along with the plate that Gill had just decided to leave in the sink without bothering to clean it. "I thought that your mutter didn't like animals."

"She doesn't. Arthur said that I could name one of their bunnies and come visit her." She grabbed the rabbit at that and turned toward him again, turning on the big, cute eyes. "So will you play tea party now?"

And all that had led to Ludwig sitting out here with Feliciana, watching as her rabbit nibbled on the end of the tablecloth and Gilbird—Feliciana had borrowed the chick from Gill's room after promising that she'd make sure nothing happened to him—bathing in the saucer of tea that Feliciana had set out for him.

"Mr. Ludwig-sir, would you like a biscuit?"

He'd gotten distracted again. Ludwig hurriedly met Feliciana's eyes, relieved that she hadn't yet seemed to notice that he wasn't mentally there.

He glanced down toward the plate she had offered him full of small, pink-frosted cookies in the shapes of hearts, and reluctantly took one. "Thank you."

She beamed, taking one herself and setting it daintily on her plate, then picking up her teacup with her pinky extended dramatically. "Lovely weather we're having, Mr. Ludwig-sir, wouldn't you agree?"

"Um, yes, of course." He took a sip of the tea and wrinkled his nose slightly, hoping that she wouldn't notice. He'd had tea a few times before. Any time that you went to Arthur's house it was pretty much guaranteed that you'd find yourself holding a tea cup at some point. And he actually didn't mind it too much in those situations, since, if there was one thing Arthur knew; it was how to make a good pot of tea.

Still, this tasted more like lukewarm water with a faint hint of flavor, as if she'd slipped the tea bags in for a few seconds and then decided that was good enough and took them out.

"Is it bad, Ludwig?"

Shoot, she'd seen his expression.

"No, no, it's wonderful!" And he downed the cup in order to prove his point, almost choking on it in his exuberance.

Feliciana didn't look convinced.

Which was why Ludwig was actually grateful when he heard the voice that he would usually have paid not to hear…

"Hey, stupid potato."

He didn't understand where that nickname had come from, but he had never been so happy to be insulted.

Lovina was standing on the porch, in her usual position of arms crossed over her chest and pout permanently etched on her face. Feliciana immediately jumped up from her seat and ran over to her sister as if she had never been so happy to see someone in her life. Which was how she had a tendency to greet anyway. "Lovi~!"

The two girls were dressed in matching frilly dresses, Lovina's green and Feliciana's pink, with ribbons threaded through their hair. Ludwig sometimes wondered if their mother and his mother got together sometimes to talk about the perfect outfits for little girls, because they had very similar tastes. Ribbons and lace and stockings… Although his and Gillian's mother had basically given up on ever getting Gill to wear anything 'girly' without being forced into it. Feliciana loved it. Lovina just always managed to muss her outfits within a few minutes of putting it on. Right now, her stockings were drooping slightly and her ribbon wasn't even.

It matched her expression of complete irritation. Irritation probably stemming from the facts that she'd been forced to wear a dress and now she was seeing her most hated rival playing with her little sister.

Lovina continued to glare at him, flashing a slightly less murderous look toward Feliciana as well. "What are you doing?"

"We're having a tea party," Feliciana replied, bouncing up and down in her excitement at having her sister present. "Do you wanna play?"

Lovina's returning stare quite plainly read 'are you kidding?' "I don't wanna play with the stupid potato."

Feliciana pouted. "But Lovi~"

Lovina immediately shook her head, sending the ribbon sliding slightly down from its place. "I don't wanna. I'm gonna go play with Antonio."

"Ooh," Feliciana immediately smiled at that. "Lovi likes Antonio!"

Lovina instantly flushed and shook her head even more fiercely. "Do not!"

"Here," Feliciana stepped closer to her sister and carefully slipped the ribbon back into place. "Your ribbon was falling out."

"Stupid ribbon," the older girl replied, pouting. Although she did reach up to feel the piece of cloth and pat it into place.

"Lovi's so pretty!" Feliciana clapped excitedly and then bent down to roll her sister's stocking back into place. "There! Perfect!"

Lovina flushed even brighter and then turned, glaring at Ludwig one last time before heading out toward the road.

At least she'd distracted Feliciana from her questions of quality of her tea. Before Feli could manage to sit down and remember what they'd been talking about, Ludwig hurriedly asked, "Does Arthur know that you took the rabbit?"

She paused and glanced down at the creature, which was sitting under the table, nibbling at a carrot that she'd placed in a bowl for her. "Um, no…"

He'd thought so. "Do his parents know that he said you could name one of the rabbits?"

She bent down and scooped the pet into her arms. "No?"

So not only had he been forced to play tea party with Feli, but he was also helping a rabbit-napper.

He hadn't really been paying attention to what Feliciana was doing and he was a little surprised when he suddenly felt her arm on his shoulder. He glanced over to see her grinning at him, holding up the rabbit for him to look at. "Pet the bunny?"

He hesitated, eyeing the animal for a few seconds. It looked harmless, but you could never tell…

"She won't bite. She's a good bunny!" And she stared at him again with that look.

Someday he'd learn how to resist that look. Just not today.

He sighed and reached out to the rabbit's head, stroking his fingers along its head. It was soft. Surprisingly soft…

And then he was startled when Feliciana leaned closer and suddenly he felt warm lips brush against his cheek.

Just for a second and then she'd danced away, giggling. "See, Ludwig! Isn't she the best bunny ever?"

She didn't notice that his cheeks had turned beet red at her sudden kiss.

"I'm gonna go get more biscuits, kay?"

"Ah…All right." He hesitantly brushed his fingers against his cheek and then flushed an even deeper red. Thank God that Gill wasn't here. He'd never hear the end of this…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an explanation of the omakes. Due to the fact that I wanted to write some of the rest of the characters as kids, I decided to make omake chapters, since for some A) it would be tricky to fit them in chronologically or B) they don't live in the same town (Ally and Mattie).


	4. Omake #2: Secret Agent Q

"Kesekesekese."

Gillian giggled to herself in excitement as she sat up on her knees, peering over the low windowsill into the house. He was sitting right there, entirely oblivious to the group that had surrounded his house! Although she had to give it to him. He had nerve. Sitting their oh-so-innocently while playing his piano, as if he hadn't kidnapped one of their members and was holding him in this very house!

Silly Roddy.

She ducked back down, sliding her walky-talky from her pocket—a nice high-tech one that was the most recent present from Francis's parents. They'd given him enough for basically every kid in the entire neighborhood, although she, Antonio, and Francis had gotten the biggest ones. Hers red, Antonio's green, and Francis's blue.

She held it to her lips while trying to keep her voice low enough to not be heard over the piano music. "Agent B, this is Agent Q, over."

There was a moment of silence and she frowned to herself. Ludwig better not've followed up on his threat to ditch her. You couldn't have a rescue mission if the muscle decided to skip out on you.

But then his voice came through, resignation tingeing his voice "Gill, I said that I didn't…"

"I'm not  _Gill_ ; I'm Agent Q." She sighed and shook her head, noticing that the family across the street was standing on their front porch watching her. She grinned and held up a peace sign before turning back to her walky-talky. "Agent B, what is your position, over?"

There was a sigh of exasperation from the other end and then, "I'm standing by the gate to the garden." At Gill's insistent silence from the other end, he sighed again and muttered "Over."

"Excellent, Agent B. What about Agent F and Agent T, over?"

There was a moment's silence again and then "Who were they again?"

She sighed and hissed back, "Francis and Antonio! Gosh, you're a horrible secret agent." Then she added as an afterthought, "Over."

"Not like I even wanted to play," he muttered under his breath and then he replied, "I think that they're near the backdoor. Yes, they're near the backdoor. Antonio's trying to get Lovina to stop crying. I think a squirrel scared her. And…"

Suddenly he was cut off as a very familiar voice cried out, "Ve~! I wanna play with the talky!"

"Feliciana!"

"Ve~ Gill?"

Maybe she should have been more selective with her secret agents. But Lovina had wanted to play too and Antonio always let Lovina follow him around…and then since she was letting Lovina play, she'd feel bad if she said that Feliciana couldn't come.

"Hello, Agent…" She hadn't actually given Feli a letter. "Agent P." P for pasta.

" Ve~ do we get pasta after this?" See? Perfect letter choice. She was so good at giving her agents secret code names.

"Umm, ask Agent B." Ludwig could deal with the pasta questions.

"Okay!"

And now she'd turn off her walky-talky so she wouldn't have to deal with her brother distracting her from the target by yelling at her for setting Feliciana on him.

Secret Agent Q was going in.

Gillian began to quietly scoot out of the bush, sliding the walky-talky into one jacket pocket as she removed a small water pistol from the other. It wasn't much, but she'd had her super soaker gun confiscated last week by her mom—which totally wasn't fair, as it wasn't her fault she'd super soaked her mom's boss; Ludwig shouldn't have moved.

Anyway, so her ammunition was low. She'd have to make sure that she made this shot count.

Roderich's parents liked to keep the windows open during the summer to let in a nice breeze, and this window happened to be low enough that it didn't take too much upper body strength to pull herself up into the house. Although she had to be careful not to make too much noise. It was really the only drawback of wearing combat boots all the time. It was hard to be really stealthy.

Not that she would ever consider not wearing her combat boots, as they were awesome and therefore necessary.

Besides, if she ever went outside without wearing them, her mom might steal them and burn them like she kept threatening.

So she just had to be very careful to not make a sound that could be heard over Roddy's piano. Which wouldn't actually be too difficult, as he was playing a very loud piece.

She very carefully pulled herself up onto the ledge, thankful that the piano bench faced away from her, and then cautiously set one foot onto the carpet, sliding the other beside it as slowly and stealthily as she cou—

"The neighbors are going to call the cops on you one of these times, Gill."

Ah! She'd been caught! All exits were blocked off! She'd have to fight! She immediately jumped down and darted to the piano bench, sending a spray of water right into Roderich's face before she knocked him off onto the carpet.

"Agent Q has caught the kidnapper! Send in reinforcements! I repeat, send in the reinforcements!"

Roderich groaned and shook his head. She'd just shoved him off his piano bench…onto the ground, which although carpeted was still rather hard. And now his glasses were missing. "Gillian, what are you doing here?"

"Rescue mission! You kidnapped one of our men and are holding him for three million dollars in ransom!"

Roderich sighed and attempted to reach to find his glasses. It would help if she wasn't now sitting on his chest, the water pistol held menacingly right in front of his face. "Gill, I have no idea what you're talking abou—"

"You kidnapped Agent G and I want him back!" She squirted another stream of water into his face, sending some down his throat and more onto the carpet.

"I didn't kidnap anyone, Gill."

"Yes, you did! I saw you do it! You kidnapped Agent G!"

Maybe she'd finally snapped. Which would actually be a good thing, as it would mean that he could finally get her committed, which would mean he'd never have to deal with her ever ever again.

"Who's Agent G?"

"Gilbird, of course! You kidnapped Gilbird and I wanna know where you put him!" She squirted him again, this time right between the eyes.

Roderich spluttered, attempting to move his hands to grab her wrists. "Quit it, Gill. I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't do anything to Gilbird."

"Yes, you did! I saw you take him! Now come clean! I have back-up waiting right outside and Francis has his super soaker gun."

Roderich could just imagine his mother's reaction if she came home and found the house flooded. "Fine, fine, okay. When did I supposedly kidnap Gilbird?"

"At school!"

Roderich just stared at her, or stared in her general direction, as everything was still a blur. He couldn't even feel his glasses…She'd better not step on them with her monster boots. "Why was Gilbird at school?"

"He gets lonely! How would you feel if you had to spend all day sitting in a cage in the garage when it's super hot out?"

"How in the world do you get away with these sort of things?" If he even  _thought_  about doing something that incredibly against the school rules, he'd get in trouble.

"Because I'm awesome." She then continued, ignoring the fact that he was now struggling to crawl out from under her. "I brought him to school and he wanted to get out because it's boring sitting in my bag all day, so I let him walk around while you were being a goody-goody and reading the book. And  _then…_ " Here she took a deep breath and then continued quickly "He crawled into your bag and you picked it up and kidnapped him!"

First off, who in their right mind would let a baby chick wander around the classroom in the middle of the school day and secondly, how did that constitute kidnapping? "So your chick climbed into my bag without my knowing it?"

Her expression, which until now had been mostly triumphant and a little cocky, was now beginning to falter. "Y—you haven't seen him? I thought he'd cheep at you and you'd notice him…" Now she was starting to look panicked and her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. "Wh—what if you squished him?"

Oh crap. She was going to cry. "Wai—wait, Gill…"

Too late. She had already started to sob, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her palms. "You killed Gilbird!"

"Hey, wait! Don't cr—"

"YOU KILLED MY CHICK!"

"Roderich, what's going on? Why is the entire neighborhood in our backyard?" And…just to make things worse…now his mom walked into the room, freezing in shock as she took in the sight inside. Roderich was still lying on the floor, his hands attempting to feel around the carpet for his glasses while he simultaneously attempted to calm the hysterical girl who was sitting on his chest. Gill had apparently convinced herself that her pet was dead and had completely freaked out to the point where she was now hiccupping between choked sobs, tears streaming down her cheeks… All in all, not the sort of thing most mothers would like to walk in on.

"R—Roderich? What's going on?" She stepped forward, noticing a pair of glasses on the floor, which she picked up and brought to her son. "Gillian, why are you crying?" She didn't really like Gillian. The girl was a hoodlum, troublemaker, disaster, but she had never seen her this upset before. "Gillian…"

The girl looked up, her eyes now so tear-filled that she probably couldn't even see her. "R—R—Roddy killed Gil—Gilbird…"

Roderich hurriedly defended himself. "You don't know that. He could be alive still. I haven't even checked my bag yet." His mom lifted the still-crying girl to her feet, finally freeing him so he could sit up and put his glasses on.

"It's all right, Gillian. I'm sure that your bird is fine. And if anything happened, we'll just buy you a new one."

"You can't replace Gilbird!" Which made her start to cry harder.

Great. His mom just had to make things even worse. Roderich sighed, hurriedly slipping his hand into hers and tugging her toward the stairs before his mom could say anything else. "Come on, Gill. I'm sure he's okay. Maybe he just fell asleep in my bag. Come on, we'll go check."

She didn't answer, but did follow, her boots leaving a trail of mud across the until-then clean carpet. Roderich's mother sighed, deciding that in this case it was better not to say anything, and then turned toward the window.

To see five pairs of eyes staring up at her. Two of which looked as if they were close to tears as well.

"Ve~ D—did Gilbird really get squished?"

…Of course. She shook her head. Why did her husband have to be coming home late tonight? "Come around to the front porch and come inside. The bird is going to be fine." That bird better be fine or she was going to be dealing with probably at least five hysterical children.

~.~.~

Roderich had never actually had Gillian in his room before. She was a pretty usual presence downstairs—after all, she came here for piano lessons every week and had a tendency to show up without forewarning at other random times (his mom considered her something of a nuisance)—but he'd never actually had her in his room before.

Probably for this reason. "Okay, I put my bag over by the bed." He just barely managed to get the words out of his mouth before Gill was across the room and digging through the bag, throwing papers everywhere in a way that he was pretty sure was designed to create the most mess with the least amount of work. "Gilbird!"

"Ah!" He hurried forward, grabbing the papers that she'd thrown in an attempt to save them from the rampaging albino. "Hey, here, let me do it…"

"Where is he?!" She ignored him, flinging more papers aside. Some of which he managed to catch but most of which fluttered across the room like snow.

"Careful! If he is okay, you don't want to hurt him now by being too hasty."

Gillian instantly froze at that, pausing before turning on him with wide, fearful eyes.

Roderich choked up a little at that. Shoot. He definitely did not know how to handle that expression. Mischievous Gillian, troublesome Gillian, yes. He knew how to deal with her then, but upset Gillian was another matter entirely.

"All right, we'll take all the heavy things out first." He leaned forward, carefully beginning to dig through the bottom of the bag, pulling out a few books and a pair of gym sneakers, which he set aside after surreptitiously checking them for blood. Thankfully he hadn't brought any of his textbooks home today…

Next a ball of gym clothes which he carefully unwrapped before folding them back up and setting them aside. Then some pencils, pens, and the rest of the papers.

And then…nothing…No chick…Just an empty bag and a few eraser shavings.

He checked all of the pockets as Gill just sat there silently, sniffing softly every so often.

Nothing…Where in the world could it be? Maybe it had escaped from the bag and was now running around his room? Although it really was so quiet in here. He'd think that the little thing would make some noise if it were anywhere.

"Um, maybe it's…"

And then he froze. Because he'd heard it. A very soft peep.

Gillian jolted at the sound, her eyes widening with surprise as she immediately whirled around in an attempt to find the source of the noise. "Gilbird?"

Another cheep, this one louder. Gill immediately attacked the laundry again, searching under it to see if her pet had gotten buried. "Gilbird, where are you?"

Another cheep, this one definitely louder.

And Roderich finally managed to identify the source. "My shoes!"

Gillian practically pounced on the sneakers, reaching inside the left one and coming out with nothing. Then the right one and…

"Gilbird!" She pulled out a small yellow ball of fluff, which she immediately cupped in her hands and brought to her cheek, rubbing her face against the soft down. Her expression was radiantly happy. "Gilbird! Silly chick, you scared me!"

Well, that was a relief. Roderich sighed, shaking his head slightly. "Well, hopefully that'll teach you not to take him to school with you."

"Roddy!" And suddenly he was on his back again; although this time he thankfully managed to keep his glasses on… And this time Gill was attached to his neck, practically squeezing the life out of him.

"Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you, Roddy!"

"Ah…" Well, that was unexpected. He couldn't remember the last time Gillian had actually thanked him for anything. "You're welcome…"

She jumped up again, beaming as she placed the chick on top of her hair. Roderich winced slightly. That had to be so unhygienic. "Come on, Agent G. Let's go tell the other agents that our mission was a success!" And she immediately was out of the room, her boots pounding against the stairs in a way that he knew his mother would not appreciate.

Roderich just stood there for a moment, glancing around at the mess that the silver-haired tornado had made. And he was pretty sure that nothing but a tornado could have done so much damage in so short an amount of time.

Well, if nothing else, Gill definitely made things more interesting…


	5. Chapter 5

Stupid girls. Stupid girls with their stupid girlyness and demanding that he let them play and then getting him in trouble when they got their girly dresses dirty. It wasn't  _his_ fault that she had ruined her dress and that Mrs. Vargas had gotten angry… But now  _he_ was grounded since the scary evil mom-lady had complained to his mother about how they were vandalizing public property and all that other stuff that he hadn't bothered listening to.

Stupid Antonio had left the rest of them to take the blame…and of course Francis hadn't even gotten scolded since everyone knew that his parents couldn't care less what he did and weren't about to punish him for anything. And Kiku and Heracles had been playing with Heracles' kitten when they were digging up the treasure so nobody was about to say anything about them.

Which had meant that the only ones who got blamed were himself and Arthur.

And Arthur was the little goody-goody and had started apologizing and saying how he was so sorry and he'd never do anything like this ever  _ever_  again.

Which had meant that he was the one who got dragged home and forced to stand on the porch while Mrs. Vargas told his mother exactly what they'd all been doing. And then his dad had come home and he'd gotten yelled at again and sent to bed without dinner and told that he was grounded for a month.

He'd probably be grounded for even longer once they found out that he'd climbed out of his bedroom window and was now wandering around the park, but he'd deal with that later.

Right now, he was thinking about how he really needed new friends. New, cool friends.

And he needed to get back at that little girly brat.

And at Heracles for managing to stay out of trouble when he'd gotten yelled at and grounded. And for just existing in general.

But mostly, he just needed new friends. Friends who were really cool and awesome. Like those middle school boys that would stand in the parking lot separating the elementary school from the middle school before their classes started, smoking and laughing together. Everybody said to stay away from them—said that they were troublemakers—which just made them even cooler…

"Hey, kid! Out of the way!"

Sadiq was startled enough by the exclamation that he jumped away from the source, narrowly missing being run over by a trio of boys on skateboards.

One of whom apparently couldn't handle the sudden change in direction and lost control, slamming into a nearby fence and flipping over it into the bushes behind. For a moment, there was no sound except the gradual slowing of the other two boys. Both of whom eyed the area where their friend had disappeared without much emotion. Then…

"OW! Get away from me, crazy psycho dog!"

And he suddenly appeared again, running into the middle of the sidewalk while a Chihuahua followed him, nipping at his heels.

"Crazy psycho old lady's dog!" he exclaimed, kicking at the animal, which managed to dodge and then grab onto the toe of his shoe in the same motion.

He immediately screeched and started shaking his foot, flailing the dog about, which was now hanging onto his sneaker for dear life.

The other two boys just stared at him with blank expressions, as if they were somehow used to this.

"Don't just stand there! Get it off!" he yelled toward them as he continued to attempt to shake the dog loose.

For a moment, neither moved as they glanced toward each other, as if telepathically asking which of them was going to deal with this. Finally, the blond sighed and stepped forward, scowling at the much taller boy as he walked over, grabbed the dog, and pulled it away from his foot without much more exertion than that.

He immediately stopped flailing about and, in a matter of moments, was acting as if the entire preceding event hadn't happened. "Ha, yeah, that's what you get when you mess with me, stupid dog."

The blond boy that had rescued him rolled his eyes and then glanced toward Sadiq. "You all right, kid?"

…Ah… Sadiq just stared at him in confusion, his mind attempting to come to terms with the insanity that had just transpired.

The boy who had been attacked by the dog suddenly stepped forward, grabbing him by the shoulder, and suddenly shook him as hard as he possibly could while shouting in his ear, "YOU OKAY, KID!?"

"OW!"

He seemed to take this exclamation of pain as confirmation that he was okay. "All right, he's fine. Let's go, guys."

The blond boy rolled his eyes in irritation and ignored his acquaintance's remark, stepping closer to the younger boy and kneeling slightly so he was on his eye level. "What are you doing out here by yourself so late at night?"

"Nothing."

He raised his eyebrows in disbelief, but seemed to decide to just accept his remark, walking back over to his skateboard and the other, silent boy.

The taller boy started to follow, then seemed to think better of it and turned back toward Sadiq. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Ah, Sadiq…"

He nodded once, and then continued. "I'm Mathias. That's Jakob over there and his bro…" He paused for a moment and then called to Jakob, "Hey, how do you pronounce Ice's real name?"

"Ísleifur…" he answered, rolling his eyes slightly as he distractedly rolled his skateboard between his feet.

"Yeah, that…" He grinned as he glanced down at the younger boy. "Hey, so you seem pretty cool, kid. You wanna come hang out with us?"

Sadiq felt his heart skip a beat in excitement. What? He was really being asked to hang out with  _older_ kids?!

"Su—sure…" No, that definitely didn't sound cool enough. "Yeah, sure, I might as well come with you guys. I don't have anything better to do right now."

"Cool." Matthias glanced toward his skateboard and then smirked at the younger boy. "You've ever ridden doubles on a board?"

"Ah…no?"


	6. Chapter 6

Lovina had decided a while ago that she didn't like Gillian. Because Antonio stopped paying as much attention to her when Gillian was around. And she didn't like it when Antonio ignored her. Since Antonio  _never_ ignored her.

Besides, she wanted somebody to push her on the tire swing. And Antonio wasn't paying her any attention.

Lovina frowned, kicking her feet slightly in an attempt to gain some motion. It didn't do anything, besides rock her slightly backward. Stupid Antonio… Stupid Gillian…

Gillian was currently in the middle of a story, her expression bright as she leaned in close to her friend, who was listening closely, straining to catch every word. "You wouldn't believe it. They called my parents and everything. Just because I locked Artie in the closet." She snorted, shaking her head slightly as she leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, pouting in a way that was vaguely reminiscent of a typical Lovina expression. "It wasn't like I wasn't gonna eventually let him out or anything."

Antonio laughed, shaking his head at the remark. Rather used to his friend's 'jokes' and the sort of trouble she'd get into for them. "I think I heard about that. Didn't they need to call the janitor to let him out?"

"Well how was I supposed to know that the door would stick and that Artie was still afraid of the dark?" She stuck her tongue out, as if at an imaginary Arthur. "He even got out of class for the rest of the day 'cause he was crying so much. He should've thanked me for it."

Antonio wished that he, Francis, and Gillian were allowed to be in the same class. He'd have loved to see Arthur's expression when he was finally let out. Especially since the two of them had never gotten along. Not since Arthur had broken the toy boat that he'd gotten for his birthday a couple years ago. He hadn't even gotten to play with it.

He had heard the screaming from down the hall during his own class, however, and had even managed to peek out long enough to catch a glimpse of a sobbing Arthur clinging to the legs of his teacher. He'd been tugged back in before he'd figured out what was going on, although he had assumed that Gill must have something to do with it.

"Besides, I'd rather have gotten Roddy, but he was sick that day. And then my Vati came and they made me make a 'formal apology' to Artie." He rolled her eyes, showing exactly what she thought of that.

"He must be pretty angry with you still."

Gill shook her head rather decisively. "No, he forgave me when I told him that he could come with me next time I went to steal Francis's cookies from his lunchbox."

That remark caused Antonio's eyes to widen in surprise. "You're the one who keeps swiping Francis's cookies? He thought it  _was_ Arthur."

"Francis's cook always makes the best cookies. He'd share them with me anyway, so it's okay if I steal them. Besides, it's not my fault that we don't have lunch at the same time anymore."

Actually, it kind of was her fault. As the chaos that seemed to follow the three around had led the principal to expressly write in their records that the three of them were to never be assigned to the same teacher. Ever. And that Francis and Gillian  _especially_ were not allowed to have recess or lunch together. Which had led to each of them being assigned to a different room and Gillian being assigned to a completely different lunch and recess time.

There was a rumour going around that stated that the principal had finally resorted to drawing names out of a hat to decide which lucky teacher got Gillian. And that the losing lady had quit on the spot. Forcing them to find a new one.

It wasn't hard to believe, going by the fact that all of her previous teachers had left right after having her as a student, either taking early retirements or going away to different schools.

This one seemed to be doing better than most, but she did occasionally disappear for a few days at a time… And they never had the same substitute twice…

Lovina had been listening to this entire conversation, still kicking her feet back and forth on the swing, frowning at the oblivious Antonio. Stupid Antonio not paying her attention. She wanted to swing! He hadn't even looked up at her since he'd sat down…

So she suddenly jumped down and walked to the table, climbing up to sit beside him. And placing her best pout on her lips, to express just how unhappy she was.

"Ah, hey, Lovi!" he exclaimed, a little surprised by the sudden presence. Not that he minded at all. Since she was adorable and now he could lean over and cuddle her. Conveniently ignoring her squeaks of protest. "How are you doing?"

Lovina attempted to struggle for a few seconds, then decided that she might as well use the fact that he was giving her attention to get what she wanted. She grabbed onto his sleeve, tugging once while pointing back at the tire swing she'd just left. "Push me," she ordered.

Antonio's response was quick. He immediately smiled, sliding off the table in obedience. "Of course, Lovi."

Gillian just rolled her eyes. Seriously, these Vargas girls were good at getting the boys trained… Her brother…Antonio…

Lovina hurried back to sit on the tire swing, watching Antonio out of the corner of her eye as he moved to stand behind her, tugging back on the chains so her feet were dangling far off the ground. "You ready, Lovi?"

She immediately nodded, wiggling her bare feet in the air as she glanced back toward him.

And then he pushed her hard, spinning the tire in the same motion so she was whirling around in an arc. Spinning around and around… And then she spun back and he pushed her again so she went even higher and faster…

Lovina giggled in excitement. Finally. "Higher! Higher!"

"Okay, okay… Gill, come here!"

Gillian smirked, scooting down to join him. Pushing hard when the tire moved back toward them.

And now Lovina was suddenly flying even higher as two pairs of arms pushed her up and up…

It was like flying. Flying while spinning around and around, so fast that she couldn't even distinguish any shapes of the trees or the house or Antonio or Gillian.

"Faster! Faster!"

Gillian laughed at that. "I don't know if we can  _go_ any faster!" Not that she didn't try to push her even harder. Okay, so Lovina could be a pain, but she was kind of cute when she was giggling like this, her lips stretched into a bright grin at the exhilarating feeling of the wind whipping against her face. Her eyes were clenched shut now, her little fists clenched tightly around the chains…

"Antonio! Gillian! Lovina!"

Antonio glanced toward the house, careful to make sure the tire didn't hit him. "Sounds like dinner's ready." He immediately reached out to grab at the tire, moving back so it wouldn't jar as it slowed. "Come on, Lovi. Time to eat."

The little girl stared at him in confusion, as if not understanding what he meant. Then she pouted, her grip tightening on the chains. "I don't wanna stop…"

"I told Mamá to make your favourite. And I promise that I'll push you in the swing after we eat, okay?"

For a moment, she looked as if she were about to argue. Then, she slowly nodded, reaching out toward Antonio for help down.

Which he immediately gave… Along with an arm to hold her upright as she stared at her surroundings, obviously dizzy.

He laughed, grabbing tightly to her hand. "Don't worry. I'll help you back."


	7. Chapter 7

Lovina hated it when Antonio's family took their annual camping trip every July. It meant that she was left without her usual playmate and had to either find someone else to play with, which was an almost impossible task since no one ever wanted to play with her... Stupid people... Or she had to play all by herself, which wasn't as much fun as playing with other people.

Usually she'd end up playing with Feliciana out of sheer boredom, but right now her sister was at the dentist's office with their mother and father. She knew this because she'd been woken up this morning by Feli's screams as she was carried—kicking and screeching like she was being murdered—into the car.

Seriously, Feliciana was such a little kid.  _She_ wasn't scared of the dentist's office anymore.

She conveniently ignored the fact that she still had to basically be sedated if you wanted to take her to the pediatrician.

Anyway, so right now she was sitting outside on the swingset that their father had put up for them a few years ago. Kicking her feet, but not actually moving very far. Bored out of her mind.

She wanted someone to play with her. She wanted Antonio to come back from his trip. They'd been gone for a week already; shouldn't he be back by now? He was going to owe her lots of tomatoes for this. Stupid Antonio.

"Pst, Lovina..."

And she was startled from her thoughts by a voice coming from behind her. She twisted her head around to see Sadiq standing behind her. With three other boys that she didn't know.

Lovina didn't like Sadiq. Probably out of all of Antonio's stupid friends, she disliked Sadiq the most. After all, he was always the one that would try to convince Antonio to leave her behind and tell her that she couldn't play with them.

And Sadiq didn't like her either, so it was weird that he would suddenly be standing on the other side of the fence going 'pst' at her.

She stood up, more out of curious than anything else, and walked over to the fence, climbing up onto the pail that she'd dragged there a while ago so she could spy on the stupid potato. Why he was in the potato's yard anyway? He wasn't home either; he and his sister were visiting their grandparents for the weekend.

"What do you want, stupid?" she questioned.

One of the other boys, the biggest one, who had dirty blond hair spiking out all over the place, laughed at her remark. Earning an irritated glare from Sadiq and an elbow in the ribs from the other blond boy standing beside him.

"Look, we need one more person to play with us right now and since we can't find anyone else, I figured that we'd have to ask you. Even if you are a stupid girl."

Lovina wrinkled her nose at him. Even if she was bored and didn't have anyone to play with—just because everyone else was stupid, not because they didn't like her or anything!—she'd rather play alone than with jerky Sadiq.

And then the bigger boy stepped forward and held his hand out to her. "Hey, I'm Matthias! And what's your name, princess?"

She immediately glared at him, not appreciating the fact that he was calling her a 'princess'. "Bastard," she responded, jumping down from the pail and beginning to walk back toward the swingset.

"Hey! Come back! We just need one more person to play with us!"

She spun around, hands on her hips, the bottom of her dress slapping against her legs in a way that really irritated her. Stupid Mama making her wear these stupid dresses... "What kind of game?"

"We're gonna play soldiers and we need one more person to play with us," Matthias answered. "Please? You can be on whichever side you want."

Lovina frowned for a moment, obviously unsure of whether she should agree or not. She  _was_ bored... And she needed someone to play with. And if she could pick her side, then she wouldn't necessarily have to play with Sadiq...

Oh, why wouldn't Antonio come back? She didn't like not having him around to play with.

And suddenly the until-now-silent blond who had elbowed Matthias bent out of sight, finally reappearing holding a toy machine gun. A big, almost real-looking toy machine gun. "You can play with the biggest gun if you want."

Now she really hesitated. It was a very impressive toy. Antonio never let her play with any of those sorts of toys, even when he let her play pirates or cowboys and Indians or soldiers with him. He always would say that girls shouldn't play with weapons (except Gill, but she was an exception to a lot of rules).

It was tempting.

"Okay." She stepped closer and reached up to grab at the gun.

But then Sadiq moved it out of reach and shook his head. "We're gonna go play in the woods. You can't have a real war out in the open like this."

She immediately pouted. She wanted the gun now. She didn't want to wait til they'd gone into the woods...

Wait. And then her eyes widened slightly. They were going to play in the woods? But the woods were dark and scary...And her mommy had told her lots of times not to go in there because it would be easy to get lost. Even Gillian had never gone in there. And Gillian went everywhere where she wasn't supposed to go.

But... If she didn't, then she wouldn't get to play with the giant gun. And they'd think she was scared!

Sadiq suddenly grinned, noticing the look of fear that crossed over her face. "You scared to go in the woods? I go in there all the time to play. I guess if you're too much of a scaredy-cat, though..."

"I am not a scaredy-cat!" She stomped her foot and glared at him and the other boys. She was  _not_ scared! If they could go into the woods, then so could she! She wasn't scared of anything!

~.~.~

Lovina had to keep reminding herself of her lack of fear when she found herself standing on the outskirts of the forest, the giant toy gun held in her arms. Her amber eyes were wide with terror as she stared under the trees. Where the sun had been choked by the overhanging limbs. It was dark. Dark and scary and probably filled with monsters...

"All right, so we're going to start here." And the biggest boy started talking again, not sounding at all afraid of the scary forest. "You'll need to go in the woods and then start looking for Sadiq and me." He motioned toward the two mostly-silent boys as he continued, "You'll be on Ice and Jakob's team."

She nodded once and took a deep breath as she hugged the gun against her chest. It wasn't very comforting, but it was something. She couldn't show that she was scared... Because she wasn't! She wasn't scared at all.

"So just go into the forest. Take...1000 steps in a straight line. Then you can start looking for us. That'll give everybody enough time to split up."

She nodded again, eyes flickering back to the forest for a moment. Okay, so maybe she was a little scared... But she had to do this and show that she wasn't a fraidy-cat.

She wished Antonio was here. She really wished Antonio was here. Because he'd hold her hand and tell her stupid stories and make things less scary.

After a few seconds, she took a hesitant step towards the woods. Before thinking of something. "You—you'll follow me, right?"

For a moment, Matthias hesitated. But then he laughed, waving off the query with a wave of his hand. "Ah, yeah... Of course."

"We'll be right behind you," Sadiq added, sending a not-so-happy look toward the older Danish boy.

"Just make sure you count your steps! And don't lose track!" Matthias continued.

Lovina scowled at him, but shifted her grip on the toy and started to count as she walked forward, "One. Two. Three..."

None of the boys moved as she walked forward, listening intently until the little girl's voice was too far away to hear. And then Sadiq grinned victoriously. "That'll teach the stupid girl! There's no way that she'll be able to find her way back for at least a few hours. And by then she'll be so scared that she'll never bother me ever again."

Matthias was staring at the spot where she'd disappeared, his expression rather more concerned. "You sure that was okay? I mean, she's littler than I thought she'd be. And she was kind of cute..."

Sadiq hurriedly shook his head. "No. No. That's how she manages to get away with everything, but she's really completely evil. Besides, she'll find her way out eventually. It's not like she'll get hurt or anything."

Matthias sighed and then glanced toward his other friends. "What do you think, Jakob?"

The blond just flashed him a look that plainly read that he thought he was an idiot. "I have nothing to do with you being an asshole."

Matthias didn't even react to the insult, although Sadiq's eyes widened in slight surprise at the language. He heard his father use words like that a lot, but if  _he_ dared to...or even thought about daring to, his mother would have washed his mouth out with soap.

"What about you, Ice?" Matthias questioned the other boy.

Ísleifur didn't respond. Not surprisingly. Actually, it would have been much more surprising if he actually  _had_ responded. Like in a 'the world is about to end' sort of way.

Sadiq's eyes flickered back to the forest for another moment. And he felt the faintest twinge of guilt. Lovina really  _was_ little. And it really  _was_ dark.

But they'd already done it. There wasn't anything to do now. And the prospect of having a Lovi-less playtime was worth suffering through the twinges of guilt. Which was why he jumped forward, motioning toward his new friends, "Let's go, before somebody shows up and we get in trouble."

Matthias hesitated again, his eyes captured by the forest. But then he forced a grin and nodded. "Yeah, all right. I got some new video games yesterday. We can play them in the clubhouse. I'll totally own you, Jakob!"

Jakob just responded with another eyeroll that was entirely ignored by his companion, who was already running down the street, attention caught by the prospect of virtual zombie massacres.


	8. Chapter 8

"Gillian, you are in so much trouble when we get home. And you too, Ludwig. I cannot believe you two."

"But, Mutter, I didn't do anythi—"

"It wasn't my fault! The kitty was trying to eat Gilbird!"

Ludwig often wondered what it would be like to be an only child. Like Francis. He didn't have any siblings getting him into trouble all the time when he hadn't even done anything. Of course, he was best friends with Gill, but that was his own decision… He wasn't  _stuck_ with her like Ludwig was.

The boy pouted as he leaned back in his chair and glared at his sister, who was sitting beside him, her boots up on the seat back. Leaving dirty prints that their mother would scream at her for later. And possibly him for not stopping her from leaving them.

As if anyone could stop Gillian from doing something if she really wanted to do it.

"Hey, isn't that Marta? And Paolo too…" his dad suddenly questioned. "What are they doing on our porch?"

Ludwig and Gillian both sat up at this, Ludwig staring out of his window at the porch, Gillian scooting over and almost squishing him since she couldn't see out of hers.

Mr. and Mrs. Vargas were standing on their porch right now. Feliciana standing between them, one of her hands clenched in her mother's hand. Ludwig blinked in surprise. Well, that was rather strange. It wasn't weird for any of them to come over to their house, but it was odd that they had been waiting on their porch for them to return.

And then he noticed that Feliciana looked as if she'd been crying.

And he felt as if his heart had just jumped in his chest. What was wrong with Feli? Was she hurt? Her parents looked rather upset, too. Although they didn't seem to have been crying.

Gillian scooted even closer. "Where's Lovi?"

That was right. Feliciana was there, but where was Lovina?

His father drove the car into the driveway and almost immediately brought it to a stop, hurriedly opening the door and stepping out. "Guten tag, Marta, Paolo. Is something wrong?"

Feliciana's dad stepped forward, offering his hand to the German man. Which in itself was an odd action, since he tended to be a very touchy-feely person. Like Feliciana. More likely to give you a hug and pat on the back than a handshake.

Ludwig's father's eyebrows rose in surprise at the movement, but he shook the proffered hand.

"We were wondering if you'd seen Lovina recently. I know she likes to come over here and play sometimes."

More like yell at him and kick him in the shins, Ludwig thought in response, as he pushed his door open and dropped onto the pavement, Gillian following before she ran over to join the adults.

"Did Lovi run away?" Gill questioned before she got tugged back by their mother.

Mr. Vargas attempted to smile, but it came out rather forced. "We had to take Feliciana to the dentist today, which is a two person affair usually…"

Ludwig's father nodded in response. They'd often heard Feliciana's screams when she was being taken to the dentist's office. The first time, Ludwig's mom had ended up burning a whole batch of cookies when she'd run outside to see what was wrong with the girl—thinking that she was getting kidnapped or something.

"Well, we decided to leave Lovina alone; we figured it'd be okay for just an hour or so. She's usually pretty good about not wandering off. And you know how hard it can be to find a babysitter for her… Especially since Gabriela took the kids on their camping trip…"

Ludwig felt a little bit sorry for Antonio's mom. She seemed to be the person who always had to babysit Lovina and Gillian because nobody else would do it.

"You can't find her?"

This seemed to be the wrong thing to say, as Feliciana suddenly burst into tears. "Big sister is gone forever!"

"Feliciana…" Her mom hurriedly dropped to kneel beside the sobbing girl, pulling a tissue from her pocket and holding it against the little girl's nose. "Lovina is going to be fine, all right? We're going to find her. She's probably just hiding somewhere."

"Anyway," her husband continued. "I was just wondering if she was with you, but if you've been gone…"

"Ja, sorry. We were at my wife's parents' house. This one—" He pointed over his shoulder at Gillian, who attempted to look as innocent as possible, "probably made it so we'll never be able to visit again. Since she almost killed their cat."

"She was trying to eat Gilbird!" Gillian repeated, reaching into the front pocket of her overalls and pulling out a sleeping chick. "See? He was completely trim—trimi—" She hesitated, glancing over at Ludwig for help.

She was the older sister, why was she asking him for help coming up with the right word? "Traumatized?"

"Yeah! That!"

Gilbird didn't really  _look_ traumatized. He woke up after a few seconds and puffed himself up, cheeping once…

Ludwig glanced toward Feliciana, unsure what he should do. He wanted to go over there and help her stop crying. But he was held back by his own complete awkwardness when it came to social situations.

She then looked up at him, her eyes bloodshot and still streaming with tears. And then suddenly ran past her mom and—before Ludwig had time to react—threw herself at him and started sobbing into his shirt.

"Lud—Ludwig… You'll help find Lovi, right? Please, Ludwig…"

"Ah…" Ludwig stared down at the girl who was now soaking his shirt with tears and flushed brightly in embarrassment. His eyes lifted toward his sister, hoping for some assistance from her.

She just stared at him unhelpfully, however. Grinning slightly at his expression that plainly read that he had absolutely no idea what to do.

He didn't react for a few moments and she just seemed to get more panicked and louder. So he finally just patted her on the head. "Um…don't worry, Feli… We'll—she'll be fine, I'm sure…"

Gillian finally decided to take pity on her baby brother and stepped forward, wrapping her arms around both her brother and Feliciana, causing Ludwig to flush even brighter at the physical contact. "Aw, its okay, Fel. We'll find Lovi for you. I bet she decided to run off after Tonio or something like that."

Feliciana looked up, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. "You—you think so?"

"She's probably eating churros with him right now. So don't worry. Now come on." She released them and grabbed the younger girl's hand, tugging her toward the house. "Let's make pasta! Because pasta is almost as awesome as me, right?"

Feliciana hesitated for a moment, but then smiled brightly and followed the girl toward the house. "Okay! Pasta!"

How come his sister had gotten all of the social abilities? Ludwig thought, as he watched the two girls hurry inside. It really wasn't fair…


	9. Chapter 9

"Hundred...Hundred..." Lovina's voice was trembling slightly. Not because she was scared! She wasn't scared! There wasn't anything to be scared of! She was brave! She didn't need anyone around...

She rubbed at her eye with the back of her hand, wiping away traitorous tears that were ignoring her silent protests. It was so dark. Why hadn't she seen anyone else yet? This wasn't a fun game. She wanted to go home...

She hoisted the toy gun up farther and took another step into the woods. What came after a'hundred? She hadn't learned how to count past a hundred yet. Maybe it was 'two hundreds'?

She sniffled as she rubbed at her eye again, staring around her in hope that she'd see one of the boys. Any of them—she'd even be okay with Sadiq.

Nothing. No one. She was all alone.

She wanted Antonio. She wanted Antonio to suddenly show up with his stupid smile and cuddle her and call her things in his stupid language and give her tomatoes and make all the scary bad things go away... But she was all alone.

"Sa—Sadiq? I don't wanna play anymore..." She waited for a moment, clutching the gun even tighter, tears starting to prickle her eyes again. "St—stupid! I don't wanna play your stupid game anymore!"

Still no answer.

She was starting to panic. She took a step forward and suddenly tripped on a branch, dropping the gun into the dirt. She stared at it for a moment and then left it. It was heavy; she didn't want it. She just wanted someone to take her home.

Maybe if she turned around, she might be able to walk back to where she'd come in. She'd tried to walk in a straight line, after all.

She slowly turned around, staring in the direction that she was pretty sure she had come from.

Maybe.

Although now that she thought of it, maybe she had turned a little bit...

She rubbed at her eyes again, staring around, hopeful for any sign of where she was and which way to go to get out... But it was just dark. Dark and she didn't know how to get home and she was scared and where had the other boys gone?

And suddenly she hesitated, eyes widening slightly as she thought of something. What if they'd left her alone? What if that was why they'd brought her here?

For a moment, she couldn't move. No, they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't leave her all alone in the middle of the dark woods...

Yes. Yes, they would. Sadiq hated her... And it would make sense and...and...

She started to walk in the direction she thought she had come from... Or walked for a few steps before she suddenly broke into a panicked sprint. Running between the trees, tripping over roots... Her dress caught on branches and tore, thorns tugged at her skin and hair...

She ignored it, just repeated to herself, "I'm not scared. I'm not scared, damn it. I'm not scared..."

And then she froze, as she heard the distinctive sound of water flowing from somewhere nearby. She definitely hadn't passed any water earlier...

But if it was a stream... Antonio lived near a stream. Maybe it was the same one. Which meant that if she followed it, it might lead her right to Antonio's house!

So she turned, following the sound until she came to the edge of a steep slope. And at the bottom was a stream. Which looked at least kind of like the creek near Antonio's house... Now she just had to figure out how to get down to it.

For a few minutes, Lovina stared down the embankment, before she began to move along the edge, her attention caught by a branch that was sticking out over the slope. There was another branch a little ways down; if she grabbed the top one and then used it to climb down to the lower one, then she could just jump the rest of the way, right?

She hesitated for a moment, and then slowly made her way over, never letting her eyes lift from the steep slope. And the ground very very far below. Not that she was scared! She wasn't scared! Even if it was a long way down... Stupid boys, she'd prove to them that she was brave!

Although it really was a really long way down to the bottom...

She paused when she finally reached the branch, then knelt down and grabbed it with both hands, using it to bear her weight as she dug her Mary Jane-clad feet into the dirt and let herself slide down a little ways. Not caring that she was now getting her dress covered in mud. She knew her mommy was going to be mad at her, but right now she didn't really care. All she wanted was to find her way to Antonio's house. And he'd give her one of his big sleep shirts to wear and his mamá would make her churros with chocolate...

The branch was springy, at least enough that it bent with her as she moved her feet down, bracing one against a rock as the other rested on a clump of dirt. Her hands were both clutched at the branch, holding tightly as she took a deep breath. Her arms hurt already...

She took another step down... And then another. A little surprised. It wasn't too difficult. She could do this, although she bet the stupid potato couldn't if he were here.

...But then she realized that the branch wouldn't bend anymore. And she was still a few feet away from the other branch.

For a moment, she didn't move. She wasn't scared. She wasn't scared at all. Those boys would be scared if they were here, but not her.

After a few moments, one of her hands carefully released the rough bark she was clinging to and began to reach out toward the other branch. She could almost reach it. Almost. It wasn't that far...

And then she heard the crack. Knowing immediately what it was... Having just a second to give a short screech of fear. And then she was falling, rolling down the hill; her head smashed against the dirt, her fingers clutched desperately at rocks and roots in an attempt to catch herself...

She tried to scream again, but the breath was beaten out of her when she hit another rock. She just yelped in pain... Like a puppy would if you kicked it.

And then she finally landed. For a moment, everything was black. Her body shutting down for a few seconds. She'd landed on her leg, twisting it in an unnatural position under her body. And for a few moments, there was nothing. Her eyelashes fluttered as she regained consciousness.

And then a jolt of pain shot through her entire body. White-hot, agonizing pain. Like nothing else she'd ever felt.

And Lovina screamed...


	10. Chapter 10

Antonio had always loved his family's annual camping trip. Going up to the mountains and camping with his mother, grandfather, and Aunt Isabel and Uncle Ferdinand had always been the highlight of his summer.

Although this year had been a little bit different, because Aunt Isabel was going to be having a baby in a few months and hadn't been able to come. Uncle Ferdinand had been a little worried about leaving her alone, but he'd decided to come anyway, apparently after Aunt Isabel had kept telling him that she'd be angry with him if he didn't go.

Still, the trip had been a lot of fun, even if Aunt Issy wasn't there. And it meant that he got to ride in the back of the car with his uncle on the ride home. Which was really cool, since his uncle knew tons of awesome magic tricks that he was currently showing him.

"Now, for my next trick I'm going to need an ordinary quarter," he chuckled, holding out his hand toward the boy, who immediately started digging through his pockets in search of the necessary item. And pouted when he couldn't find one...

"But I don't have a quarter."

His grandfather chuckled from his seat in front and thrust his hand back with a quarter resting in the palm. "Just keep an eye on him, Toni. Your uncle is the type who'll try to sucker an old man out of his life savings."

Antonio laughed as Uncle Ferdinand rolled his eyes and took the quarter. "Steal twenty dollars from your dad's wallet when you're sixteen and you never hear the end of it."

"I wanna see the trick!" Antonio interrupted, staring in anticipation at the quarter held in his uncle's hand.

The man chuckled, amused by his nephew's impatience. "All right, but just one trick, since we should be getting home soon." He held his hand out, showing the quarter to his nephew before closing it in a fist. "All right, watch my hand very closely." He moved his free hand over the other for a moment before suddenly throwing both open.

To reveal that the quarter had disappeared.

Antonio laughed again, staring at his uncle's lap to see if the quarter had fallen there. "Where'd it go?"

"Why, isn't it obvious? It's right here..." He reached to Antonio's ear and pulled out... Nothing...

He looked rather surprised. "Huh...I  _thought_ it was there... Oh well, guess it must have gotten lost somewhere. You got another quarter, dad?"

"Don't think that I won't come back there and spank you just because you're thirty-seven now."

"I'm thirty-five, dad! How in the world could you forget your own son's age?"

Antonio absolutely loved his family. They were so entertaining.

"You two be quiet or I'm going to make you  _walk_ all the way back home," his mom interrupted, the smile crossing over her lips rather underscoring the threat.

And they didn't listen, instead arguing over whether Uncle Ferdinand had actually lost the coin or not...

Until his mom suddenly slowed when they started pulling up onto the road which would lead to their house. The men glanced up; surprised that she'd suddenly slowed. Even more surprised when they noticed a dark blue minivan parked on the driveway. And the figures sitting on the porch: Mr. and Mrs. Vargas, Mr. and Mrs. Beilschmidt, Gillian, Ludwig, Francis, and Feliciana. None of whom looked very happy.

Antonio immediately sat up straighter, fingers automatically moving to the door handle before remembering that it had a child lock—added after Gillian had ridden with them up to the amusement park one summer and had decided to open the door in the middle of the highway in order to see what would happen.

"Who's at your house, Gabi?" his uncle questioned after a moment. "You tick somebody off and they set the mob on you?"

Antonio's mother pulled to a stop without answering him, obviously confused by her neighbours' presence. Then she stepped out of the car and moved to open up Antonio's door, taking his hand in hers before he could do anything else. "Hola, lo siento, have you been waiting long?"

Mr. Vargas stepped off of the porch, his expression oddly sombre. Antonio hid behind his mother's leg, feeling strangely frightened of this whole situation. What was going on? Why were they acting so odd? And...

Wait.

Where was Lovi?

His eyes immediately widened as he stared at the group assembled on the porch. Feliciana was sitting on her mother's lap, her face buried in her chest, body shaking slightly. Was she crying? Gillian and Francis were sitting on the deck together, neither moving or talking. Ludwig was standing next to his mother, not doing anything either.

Lovi wasn't there.

He immediately stared up into her father's eyes and then took a step forward. "Lovi? Where's Lovi? Did something happen to her?"

The man glanced down at him, his eyes immediately flickering with...sadness, regret, hopelessness?

"Lovina disappeared yesterday. We've been going to all of the families that live around us, but nobody's seen her. We were hoping that she might have found you..." He glanced back up at his mother and continued. "I know that she's fond of Antonio, so I thought that she might have tried to take the bus to your house..."

"But Lovi's scared of going on the bus alone," Antonio interrupted, his fingers twisting the hem of his shirt nervously. How could Lovi be missing? Lovi couldn't really be missing. She was probably just hiding... But if she'd been gone since yesterday... He felt his stomach twist with fear. What if Lovi had gotten lost somewhere? What if she was scared...or what if she'd gotten hurt? Or what if she'd been kidnapped by a scary bad man or...or...

"What's going on here?" Antonio was startled from his internal thoughts by his grandfather's sudden shout. He glanced up, watching as his grandfather and uncle left the car and walked over. "You said that somebody is missing?"

Mr. Vargas nodded. "Our daughter, Lovina."

"What happened?" Antonio was a little surprised by how commanding his grandfather sounded. Like an army sergeant, or something like that.

"Well," he frowned as he glanced toward his wife on the porch, but then continued. "My wife and I took our other daughter, Feliciana, to the dentist's office yesterday. It's usually a two person affair, since she's terrified of their office... And Lovina is usually perfectly fine being on her own for a few hours, but when we came back she was gone and..."

"Have you called the police?"

"Not yet. We wanted to check if you'd seen her first..."

Lovina's mother suddenly stood, setting Feliciana on the floor and walking over to join her husband. "You must understand that Lovina has a tendency to do things like this often. Wander off on her own, usually not when we aren't at home, but it's not like it surprised us or anything. And the last thing I want to do is to  _encourage_  that sort of action by giving her negative attention..."

"But," her husband interrupted, "We can't just ignore this."

She snorted. "I know Lovina. She's probably just off hiding somewhere."

Antonio's uncle did not look happy right now. "Your daughter has been missing for a day and you  _don't_ want to call the police? What if she's been kidnapped or something like that?"

Mr. Vargas frowned at this, glancing toward his wife, who just rolled her eyes. "She's probably fine. But if you insist..."

"We should call the police immediately," Antonio's uncle frowned as he glanced back at his father, who nodded in agreement. "We'll call the police and then maybe start organizing search parties. If she wasn't taken by someone, it's probable that she's in the area. There are lots of woods around here, right? It's possible that she got lost somewhere..."

And then Antonio's mother spoke up, squeezing Antonio's hand a little more tightly. "Hermano, you don't need to do this. Shouldn't you go back to Isabel?"

Uncle Ferdinand just smiled back in response at his sister. "Isabel would murder me if I came home while a little girl was missing. I'll call her tonight. Besides, this is important. If one of my favourite nephew's friends is missing, then of course I'm going to help find her." At this, he knelt down and ruffled Antonio's hair, smiling reassuringly as the boy flashed him a worried look. "Don't you worry, we'll find her. And then you can give her a big hug and yell at her for worrying everyone, all right?"

Antonio forced a smile and nodded, before glancing at Gillian and Francis out of the corner of his eye. Both of whom looked back...and then nodded.

Not that he didn't think that his uncle would try, but he sort of doubted that the adults would actually be able to find her. After all, they didn't know Lovi like he did.

Which meant that he was going to have to be the one to rescue her. With Gill and Francis and maybe some of the others' help as well.


	11. Chapter 11

She hurt.

Everything hurt. Everything hurt so badly that she just wanted to lie there and scream and scream until someone came and save her.

Lovina didn't know how long she'd been lying there. Lying there on the ground, entire body coated in mud, water soaking up through her clothing... Her leg was twisted under her body, sending shrieks of agony up through her body every time she attempted to move.

And she was all alone. All alone and it was dark. Very dark... And monsters came out in the dark. Monsters that would eat little girls. Gill had told her lots of stories about the ghosts and monsters that lived in the dark. Like the scary wolves that lived in the woods and would go around, looking for little girls to gobble up. Like in the Red Riding Hood story. Or scary witches that would try to cook you in their oven...

She whimpered at these thoughts, staring around in search of any sign of little girl-eating monsters.

"Antonio?" She knew that he couldn't hear her. He wasn't anywhere nearby. He was probably off with Gillian and Francis and everyone else having tons of fun while she lay here in the mud and...and...

She sniffled and moved a fist to her eyes in an attempt to wipe the tears away. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't!

"Antonio... Antonio, come find me..."

~.~.~

It wasn't that Antonio didn't trust the adults. He knew his uncle would try as hard as he could to find Lovi. It was just that he  _knew_ that no one else knew Lovina like he did. Even her madre and padre hardly knew anything about her, as shown by the fact that they didn't even know that she was scared of riding on the bus alone…

Besides, he somehow doubted that Lovi would really want to be found by them. After all, whenever the little girl was hurt or scared or lonely, she'd always come to him. He couldn't remember a single time where she'd actually gone to her madre for comfort…

Which he found kind of strange, but then again, her madre was scary and didn't know how to make yummy churros, so that was probably the reason.

And, they had to find Lovi as quickly as they could, which would happen much faster if they helped too. Because Lovi was probably scared. Scared and possibly hurt and hungry. And there was nothing that made him feel worse than the thought that cute little Lovi was frightened somewhere, probably wondering why he hadn't come for her yet.

"So, have you come up with an awesome plan to find her?" Gill suddenly questioned, startling Antonio from his thoughts. The children were currently seated in his living room, where they had been banished while the adults talked outside. They'd been told to go 'play'… As if they could play when they knew that Lovi had disappeared.

Instead, they were all trying to come up with a plan for how to save Lovina. So far, Feliciana had offered to make lots and lots of pasta, because nobody could resist pasta, even Lovi. Ludwig had just said that they should let the adults handle it. And Francis and Gillian hadn't said anything yet.

Antonio was currently standing near the window, attempting to eavesdrop on the adults, which was rather difficult, as they all seemed to want to talk at the same time. Sometimes, however, he could catch snippets of words… Although he could hear everything when Gill's padre suddenly shouted "You should have called the police yesterday! If she was kidnapped by someone, they could be in Mexico by now!"

He'd never actually heard Gill's padre yell before. Even when Gill had cut her hair, her padre hadn't actually gotten very angry… But now he sounded very very  _very_ angry…

"Maybe, if you guys think that we have to do this, then we could ask other kids in the neighbourhood if they've seen her?" Ludwig suddenly remarked from his seat on the couch. "If she wandered off, or was grabbed by someone, there must have been somebody around who saw her..."

Feliciana sniffled, as she rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand and kicked her feet. "Why would somebody be mean and steal my sister... I want my sister back!"

Gillian immediately scooted off her seat, which she had been sharing with Francis, to hurry toward the little Italian girl, dropping down in front of her and grabbing her hands. "Hey, hey. Don't cry, Feli. We'll find Lovina, okay? I promise on my awesomeness that we'll find Lovi for you."

Feliciana lifted her head to stare at the older girl, and then smiled slightly. "Okay..."

"So here's our awesome plan!" She jumped up, turning towards the others. "We'll do that! We'll go all around the town! We'll split up into groups! Luddy, you take Feli, Francis goes with Tonio, and I'll go by my awesome self. Go to all of the houses around the neighbourhood, go to all of the parks, go  _everywhere_  and ask if anyone's seen Lovina. Then we'll meet up at the ice cream shop afterwards!"

Francis smiled slightly and nodded. "Sounds perfect, Gilly..."

"But we'll have to wait until the grown-ups are ready to leave, Gill, since I don't have my bus pass." Ludwig pointed out. "And I doubt that anybody else does either."

Gillian just laughed, as she started walking towards the back door. "You don't need a bus pass if you're with the awesome Gill!"

Ludwig blinked at this, and then stood up to follow her. "Wait, why?"

"Because I'm awesome, of course!" She spun around, giggling in amusement at the confused expression that crossed her younger brother's face. "Mr. Bus Man lets me ride on the inside of the bus for free now, since he doesn't like me riding on the roof."

"But we can't just leave! Mutti and vati will be worried!"

"Don't worry! They'll know that you're with the awesome me! Kesekesekese!"


	12. Chapter 12

Ludwig was well aware of the fact that his big sister was pretty much insane. He'd figured  _that_ out by the time he was five, after all. Still, even knowing that hadn't really prepared him for what she was going to do when the bus that would take them into town pulled up at the stop.

"BIG MIKE!"

Ludwig had definitely not expected Gill to squeal at an insanely loud and high pitch and  _throw_ herself into the interior of the bus, terrifying all of the other passengers, all of whom were now staring at her in varying degrees of disbelief, shock, and confusion.

Antonio and Francis had glanced at each other and then laughed, following her up into the bus. Ludwig and Feliciana, who was still clinging to his arm—he'd attempted shaking her off, but she'd just started clinging ever  _harder_ , so he'd given up on that—followed after a moment of wondering whether it might be safer to just go back to the house.

Gillian was standing inside, arms wrapped tightly around the bus driver, who was chuckling in amusement and patting her on the back. She was an older lady, with slightly greying hair and a rather friendly expression. She waved at Feliciana, who immediately beamed and waved back, finally letting go of Ludwig's arm.

"I didn't know you drove the bus, Big Mike!" That was a rather odd nickname for a lady who reminded Ludwig of his grandmother, but then again, this was Gill. "What happened to Mr. Bus Man?"

"I heard that he quit. Something about having to deal with a trio of little demons who decided to see what would happen if they shook up a bunch of soda cans and opened the tabs all at once. On a bus full of passengers."

Gill immediately beamed. "That was totally awesome! You should've seen this one lady! She screamed so loud!" She stared out of the windshield, eyes wide in excitement as she giggled. "This is so awesome! Can you do doughnuts with this?"

The lady snorted and shook her head. "Not when I've got all these passengers, I can't. Although maybe if you catch me at the end of my route, we can try to do some doughnuts with it. Do you need a ride into town, Chickie?"

Gill nodded, still grinning up at the woman brightly. "Uh huh! We're going on a search and rescue mission for Antonio's Lovi!"

Antonio offered a smile at this statement and waved in response.

"All right, then. Go on back. And don't do anything too destructive."

"We won't, Big Mike!"

"And if you're good, I promise that I'll show you how to make something that'll explode even better than soda cans."

Gillian immediately squealed, giving the woman an even tighter squeeze before running to the back of the bus and dropping into an unoccupied seat, scooting down to the window so Antonio and Francis could both sit beside her as well.

Ludwig followed, taking Feliciana's hand, since she seemed so distracted by the other people that she wasn't going to follow if he didn't lead her... His heart was pounding in his ears the entire way down the aisle, his hand was sweating like crazy to the point that he was afraid she might slip away. And then they sat down in another empty seat and she scooted incredibly close to him, snuggling against his arm. His face was turning a rather impressive shade of red at that.

"Wh—who was that lady?" he managed to stammer out, trying to ignore that Feliciana was leaning against him, apparently dropping off to sleep, making her characteristic "Ve~ Ve~" sound of contentment as she did so.

"She's awesome. She's gonna teach me how to ride a motorcycle when I'm bigger!"

...So she was  _that_ kind of grown-up...

~.~.~

"And we'll split up and meet at the ice cream store! And we'll all get awesome ice cream and then go on our rescue mission!"

Antonio was barely listening to Gillian's plan. His thoughts were too focused on Lovi. Trying to think of who might have any idea where she was. Currently they were standing in the middle of the park, surrounding by children and grown-ups. Any of whom  _might_ have seen Lovi. Might or might not. And they had to be  _quick_ , because they had to rescue Lovi before anything happened to her. And it would be getting dark soon and they just  _had_ to save her.

He had to believe that she'd just wandered away from the house. That was the only thing that  _could_ have happened. Because the idea of someone stealing Lovi away... He shivered at the thought. He'd once seen a news report on the television—his uncle had been watching it and hadn't realized that Antonio had wandered downstairs and was watching him from the doorway—about a man who had apparently stolen little girls from their homes and kept them locked up in his basement...

Antonio still had vivid memories of the image of those little girls... It still gave him nightmares sometimes, especially since one of them had even looked a little like Lovi...

"Antoine, are you all right?"

He was startled from his thoughts by the sudden presence of Francis leaning close to his face, staring at him with interested blue eyes. Blue eyes which blinked once as they continued to stare deeply into his, before he smiled and leaned back, patting the Spanish boy on the head. "Do not worry, mon ami, we will find her, oui?"

Antonio stared at him for a moment, and then nodded in agreement as he forced a smile. "Sí, we will."

And the group split at that, Gillian heading off toward the playground on her own, Ludwig leading Feliciana away in a the opposite direction—toward some of the neighbourhood businesses, and Francis and Antonio heading toward Lovi's house.

It wasn't a long walk to her home, although it took longer than usual since they had to stop and ask everyone they passed if they'd happened to see a little brunette girl, about this tall, would probably have been dressed in a cute little party dress with a ribbon in her hair, almost constantly scowling? A few knew who they were talking about and said that they'd seen her at various other times, but no one had seen her since she had disappeared...

Antonio was getting more and more worried at every negative answer they received. Somebody  _must_ have seen Lovi. They  _must_ have. Even if a scary man like the one on TV  _had_ grabbed Lovi, somebody would have seen him do it.

But he was getting worried and scared... Because what would he do if she was gone forever?

"Antoine, look! There's Sadiq!"

The boy was standing across the street with a trio of other boys that Antonio had never actually seen before. They looked quite a bit older, though. And they all had a skateboard that they were either holding or standing on. The biggest one, a blond boy with spiky hair, suddenly laughed and dropped his skateboard to the sidewalk, pushing it toward Sadiq, who grinned as he placed a foot on it.

"Don't worry, you'll learn it quick! I'm a totally awesome teacher, after all. I was the one who taught Ice, after all."

The slightly shorter blond snorted derisively at that. "You put him on top of the skateboard and then pushed him down a hill. That doesn't count as  _teaching_ , idiot."

"Hey, you can't learn unless you're placed in a situation where you need to lea—oh, hey, what's up?"

Antonio and Francis had walked across the street while this conversation was going on and made their way to the group. Antonio's thoughts going along the lines of 'maybe  _these_ guys will know where Lovi is; Sadiq lives near her after all', while Francis thought 'since when did Sadiq get other friends?'

"Hola, we were just wondering if you happened to have seen Lovi anytime recently." Antonio glanced toward Sadiq, who was staring off down the street as if disinterested in what he was saying. Which wasn't very nice, but then again, he  _had_ been the one who got mad at Lovi last time she wanted to play with them...

"Oui, she's petite... She has curly brown hair and brown eyes and likes to call people names."

Antonio hurriedly added, "And her madre dresses her up in cute little dresses, but she always gets them dirty almost as soon as she puts them on. And she'll usually wear a ribbon in her hair, but then it'll start drooping and she hates it when people try to fix it and she'll try to do it herself, but she never can and it's so cute!"

And the other boys just blinked at him. And then the tallest laughed slightly nervously. "Heh...what'd you say her name was?"

"Lovi. Lovina Vargas." Antonio stared at the boy, who now looked a little nervous. Did he know where Lovi was? Had he seen her? "She's been gone since yesterday and we need to find her because she's probably lonely and scared and hungry."

"Since yesterday? You sure?" Now he was scratching at the back of his head, looking sheepish.

And Francis was scowling slightly, obviously suspicious. "Oui. Would you happen to have any idea where she is? Anything you know could be useful."

"Well, I don't know...I mean, I might have seen someone who kind of looked like her." He glanced toward the other boys quickly, as if trying to get advice from them about what to say. The two boys that looked like they were around his age just ignored him, while Sadiq flashed him an irritated glare.

"Eh, I saw a little brunette girl who kind of looked like that walking near the woods... Maybe she went in there?"

Francis's eyes narrowed even more at the statement, as he glanced between Sadiq and this boy. "Really?"

"You think Lovi might have gone in the woods? But Lovi's scared of the woods... Francis, we have to go look for her! What if she's lost?" And at this, Antonio grabbed his friends arm and started dragging him away from the others, ignoring his yelp of surprise at the sudden movement.

"Antoine, remember that we have to meet the others," Francis quickly reminded his friend, who otherwise probably would have just run off on his own to try to save the little girl, before turning his head again to watch the other boys, frowning suspiciously as the tallest chuckled rather nervously again.

He'd have to find them later, he mentally noted. And ask a few, much more detailed questions about when they'd  _supposedly_  seen little Lovi wandering near the woods...


	13. Chapter 13

"Ve~ a—are you sure Lovi's in there?" Feliciana stared deep into the dark, spooky forest, voice trembling slightly as she imagined what kind of scary things might be in there. Scary monsters, maybe. Like the ones Gill told her about. Like the scary ghosts that would appear out of the trees and go 'boo!'

She shivered and clung more tightly to Ludwig's arm, snuggling against him.

Antonio frowned, as he also stared into the darkness. Although his thoughts were travelling more along the lines of, 'Lovi could be in there. She may have been in there all night. How could she have gotten so lost that she couldn't find her way out?'

Unless something terrible had happened to her...

"All right," Gillian suddenly took the lead again, her confident voice bringing their minds back to reality and calming some of their most terrifying fantasies. "We have to decide if we're going all together or splitting up..."

"Ve~! I don't want to go alone!" And Feliciana immediately started to sniffle, tears dampening her big brown eyes.

"You won't, Feli!" Gillian hurriedly reassured her, bending down to give her a quick hug. "What if Francis goes with you and Ludwig? We can split up into two groups. Francis, you, and Ludwig, and Antonio and the awesome me."

Feliciana blinked, staring up at the girl for a moment before nodding fearfully. "Ve~ but what if you get lost, Gill?"

"I'm awesome! Awesome people don't get lost, silly!" She flicked her nose, drawing a giggle from the younger girl. "Don't worry. Francis has his cell phone, so you can call the grown-ups if something happens to you."

"But what if something happens to  _you_?"

She grinned and reached into her back pocket, pulling out one of the walky-talkies that Francis's parents had bought the children a few months ago as a 'sorry we're never home' present. "I've got my talky, don't worry. And whoever finds Lovi can call the other group, okay?"

"Ve~ okay." She seemed reassured by this and suddenly reached up to throw her arms around Gill's neck. "I love you, Gill-Gill."

Gillian blinked in surprise, then laughed and hugged her back. "Yeah, yeah. I love you too, Feli. Now, you guys start looking so we can find Lovi soon as we can, right?"

"Right!"

Ludwig blinked at his sister, rather surprised that what she had said actually...well...made sense. He'd never actually seen her act this serious before...

Which led to the question why she didn't act like this more often?

"Should we meet here when we've found her?" Francis suddenly questioned, as he slipped a hand around Feli's little fingers, keeping her close. "Or if it gets too dark to look?"

Gill hurriedly shook her head. "No! We'll look 'til we find her! An awesome person like me won't leave Lovi to be lost in the woods all night. That would be completely and totally unawesome."

Francis hurriedly nodded. "All right, then. Come on, Ludwig, Feli. We'll go look for her over here."

And they walked off, leaving Antonio and Gillian to head in the opposite direction.

"Well, let's start looking, Tonio. We've gotta find her before Francis does! Since we're totally more awesome than he could ever hope to be!"

~.~.~

Everyone would be happy...

Everyone would be happy if she disappeared forever...

Lovina could hear the monsters now. They were surrounding her, getting ready to pounce at her and gobble her up. She closed her eyes more tightly, shivering as she felt one of them brush against her leg.

Scary monsters. Scary monsters. She didn't want to be eaten by scary monsters.

Antonio. Where was Antonio? He was supposed to take care of her. He was supposed to scare away all of the scary monsters.

They'd all be happy if she was eaten. Mommy would be happy, because then she'd only have Feli. Because everyone loved Feli more than her.

They  _wanted_ her to disappear forever! They  _wanted_  her to stay out here forever and be eaten by the monsters! That was why no one was coming, because they wanted her to get eaten.

And she whimpered; she couldn't scream or cry or do anything anymore. All she could do was lay there. Lay there and listen to the monsters. They were breathing right near her. And soon they'd pounce on her and everyone would be happy because she'd be gone and...

And she could hear something else... Something besides the sound of the monsters... Something from far away...

"...ovi... Lovi! Lovi!"

"Hey, kid! Where are ya? The awesomeness is here to rescue ya!"

"Lovi! Lovi! Are you okay? Lovi, don't be scared!"

...Antonio?

She could hear Antonio. But that couldn't really be him, because he'd forgotten about her. He was with everyone else. Everyone else who didn't want her... Because she always made his friends angry with him and he'd have lots of kids to play with if it weren't for her...

And then another shout of "Lovi!"

"Hey, what's this?"

"Qué? It looks like a cliff. There's a stream at the bottom, I think..."

"I can't see the bottom. My flashlight doesn't reach that far..." Lovina knew that voice, but her mind was too muddled right now to identify it. "Here, I'm going to go down..."

And then Antonio again. "Don't fall, Gill..."

"I won't. I'm too awesome to fall!"

There was a moment of silence, which almost convinced Lovina that she couldn't have really heard Antonio. No, because he couldn't really be here. But then there was the sudden sound of scuffling coming from above. And rocks were falling near her... Little rocks. And some bigger ones.

Antonio. She'd heard Antonio. Antonio was coming?

"Ow!"

"Gill! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just scraped my leg a little bit. I'm at the bottom now..."

And then Lovina saw a faint light coming from nearby. A faint light that was moving from side to side...

Antonio?

"I don't see anything ye—wait...wait a sec..." And suddenly the light was shining right in her eyes. And it was bright and that hurt. Lovina immediately ducked her face away, making a soft sound of discontentment. "Ah! Tonio! I found her!"

"Lovi?" And then there was the sound of more rocks moving. Even more than when Gill had come down. But Lovina was distracted from this by the girl that suddenly dropped down beside her. And her hair was being stroked and fingers tilted her head upwards. She couldn't really make much out about the figure in the dark.

"Thank Gott. Thank Gott. Lovi? Lovi, you okay?"

And suddenly she was being suffocated, this time by a figure that immediately started cooing to her in Spanish, fingers gently running through her hair, arms wrapped tightly around her...

Antonio. Antonio...

"You're okay, Lovi. Gill and me are here. We're going to take you home now."

She looked up at him, to see Antonio looking down at her, smiling with relief. And then he gently lifted her up so she was now sitting in his lap, head resting against his chest as he rocked her gently and now he was singing to her and his voice sounded so pretty...

"I think her leg's hurt. It's all twisted."

"Sí, pobrecita..." Lovi could hear his heart going thump thump thump and he was so nice and warm… She snuggled closer to the sound and the heat, feeling how he moved when he breathed…

And he was talking to her again, his voice soft and gentle and calming and she was so sleepy…

"Ja, Francis, we found her… Ja, call mutti… Oh… Well, she can't be very angry at the awesome me, right?"

"You're such a brave little girl, Lovi." He was rubbing her back now. And it felt nice and she was just so sleepy right now…

And that was Lovina's last thought before she fell fast asleep to the sound of Antonio's beating heart and whispering voice. Now finally feeling safe again…


	14. Chapter 14

"Mamá! Hurry!"

If there was one thing that Antonio found rather frustrating about adults, it was that they never seemed to understand just how important it was to be  _fast_. They needed to  _hurry_  and his mamá was still standing at the front door, taking time to lock it when they should have already been driving away.

"Mamá!"

"I'm coming, Antonio. Slow down. We don't need to rush."

Antonio ignored this, bouncing on the balls of his feet. His fingers clutched around the car door's handle and lifted it up and down as if he hoped that it would miraculously unlock itself if he just played with it long enough.

And now  _finally_  she walked over to the driver's door, sliding inside before pressing on the button that would unlock his door.

He almost hit himself in the face as he yanked the door open and jumped inside, turning toward the front almost immediately. "Hurry, Mamá!"

"Buckle your seat belt, Antonio..."

Ah! How could she be worrying about something like  _that_? He obeyed though, almost choking himself in his haste to pull the strap across his body. "Okay! Let's go! Let's go!"

She chuckled softly, but obliged, bringing the motor to life and then heading out toward town.

Antonio just sat in the backseat, watching the back of his madre's head and wishing that she would drive  _faster_. But he was pretty sure that she wouldn't like it if he asked her to hurry up again. So instead he just sat there quickly and squeezed the vase of roses, which he'd helped Madre pick out for today, against his chest.

Today. The day when Lovi was coming back home from the hospital.

Antonio was pretty sure that he'd never felt more relieved in his life than when he'd heard Gill's voice calling from the bottom of that cliff. Calling up to tell him that Lovi was there. She wasn't dead or stolen away. And then he'd climbed down, almost falling in his haste... And he'd almost started crying out of sheer relief when he saw her...

She'd been filthy, of course. Covered in dirt and mud; the only clean spots on her face had been where the tear tracks had cut through the dirt. And her leg had been twisted. But she was there. She was alive and right in front of him.

He'd almost been scared to hold her, though, just in case he hurt her more. But he couldn't resist pulling her into his arms and feeling her warm body, knowing that she was okay. And then she'd been so frightened and clung to him so tightly that he couldn't have let her go, even if he'd wanted to.

And they'd just sat there, Antonio cuddling the soon-sleeping girl in his arms while Gillian sat beside him and gently stroked Lovi's hair. It was rare that she was so quiet. Apparently she was just as relieved as he was.

The only time that she moved was to get up at one point and walk to the water. He'd watched as she lifted her shirt up and bit at it until she could tear the fabric, ripping a long strip from the bottom that she wet and then used to wash at least some of the dirt away from Lovi's face and arms and legs...

Other than that, she hadn't moved and she hadn't said a word. Not until they heard voices coming from above. Then she'd jumped up and called up, shouting that "We found Lovi! She's down here! She's hurt!"

Uncle Ferdinand and Mr. Beilschmidt had climbed down after a few minutes, his uncle carrying a sheet and bundle of rope, which they had then used to create a makeshift stretcher. He'd watched as Gill's padre lifted the little girl into the shaky-looking hammock and then held his breath as her father, his mother, and Mrs. Beilschmidt all carefully pulled it up to where they were standing.

Things were a bit of a blur after that. He remembered that Uncle Ferdinand had knelt in front of him and started talking to him. Saying something about how they shouldn't have run off without telling anyone because they'd been worried. What if they had gotten lost too? But then he'd been hugged and his uncle murmured, softly in his ear, "You're a brave kid, Toni. You probably just saved that little girl's life..."

Gill's dad seemed to be saying the same things to Gillian, as she looked a little bit sheepish. But mostly proud of herself. And then he and Gill had been helped up the cliff by the adults and, once they reached the top, were immediately fussed over by their mothers...

"Gillian Maria Beilschmidt! You had your father and I worried sick! I was terrified that something might have happened to you! And how could you bring your brother out here too? And Feli!"

"Antonio, you shouldn't have come out here alone. You should have come and gotten me. What if you had broken your leg too?"

Although it didn't really sound like real scolding. As they sounded too relieved to really be angry...

He noticed that Lovi's mother wasn't here... Her dad was. And he was now holding Lovi in his arms, looking like he was about to be sick as he stared down at her face.

"Ah, we should probably—I should take her to the hospital?"

Uncle Ferdinand had nodded, stepping forward and patting the other man on the shoulder once before heading into the woods. Antonio had found his hand squeezed in his mother's, much tighter than necessary, like she thought he might run away or something...

They'd followed his uncle, walking quite a ways before finally stepping out from under the trees and finding Feliciana, Ludwig, and Francis standing beside his mother's car, Feliciana holding onto Ludwig's hand as Francis flipped his phone open and closed, open and closed... He'd stopped and smiled brightly, however, when they came out and he saw the bundle that was Lovi. "Ah, see, ma chéri? I told you that Antoine would find her."

Feliciana's eyes had lit up at the sight, although she hadn't moved from Ludwig's side, probably worried that she'd get yelled at or do something wrong... Her mother was standing by the trunk of their car, staring off in the opposite direction. She only turned her head a tiny bit when she heard them come up, and had snorted as she saw the bundle in her husband's arms. "I told you that she'd just run off. Probably thought that she'd spite us, but ended up getting lost...Idiot."

And then Antonio saw something that he had never seen before, and actually had never expected to see...

He saw Gillian's mother suddenly let go of her daughter's hand, walk up to Lovina's mother...

And smack her—hard—across the face with her palm.

"How  _dare_ you say that about your daughter?" Antonio blinked in surprise. Actually, he was pretty sure that everyone blinked in surprise. He had never seen Gill's madre do anything like this... "Lovina could have easily died out here!  _Scheiße_...She would have if our kids hadn't had the  _guts_ to actually get off their asses and find her!"

"Language, schatzi..."

Antonio glanced up toward Gill's padre, who was just watching his wife and not moving to stop her... Even though she was moving right up close to Lovi's madre and yelling at her and Lovi's madre looked completely terrified.

"You tell her, Mutti!"

She ignored Gill's remark and continued, voice now changing so it sounded very very calm. "Now. You are going to get your ass to that hospital and make sure that your sweet little baby girl is taken care of, all right? And when she wakes up, you are not going to say a word to her. You are going to call me or Gabi and we are going to come and love on that little thing like she deserves. Verstehst du?"

...Gill's madre could be scary when she was angry.

Apparently Lovi's madre thought so too, since she just looked at her for a long while and then mumbled, "...Sí" before turning and walking to the passenger's door of her car, sliding into the seat and giving her husband a rather nasty look.

He winced visibly at the expression and then turned toward Mrs. Beilschmidt, shifting Lovina's weight in his arms nervously. "Ah...I'm sorry..."

"Would you like us to take Feli while you're at the hospital?" she hurriedly questioned, interrupting his apology as she instead reached down and slid her hand into the, until now mostly ignored, little girl's hand. "It would probably be easier for you if you don't have to worry about her."

"Ah..." He hesitated for a moment, shifting Lovina's weight again and glancing toward the car. Receiving another nasty look. And then he turned back toward Mrs. Beilschmidt, nodding quickly. "Yes, that would be helpful. And I'm sorry about...well...she's just frustrated and..."

"You should really go. The sooner she gets looked at, the better."

The words had come quickly, startling him. He'd paused, hesitating for another moment, seemingly caught between saying something else and leaving...

Leaving won out. As, after a few more seconds, he sighed and then turned and walked to the car, opening the back door and sliding Lovina into her seat. He took a moment to buckle her up and then hurriedly closed the door and took his seat in the front.

No one moved until they'd driven away. Out of sight.

And then Gill broke the silence. "That was  _awesome_ , Mutti!"

"I shouldn't have done that..." Mrs. Beilschmidt sighed and rubbed at her forehead, glancing down at where her daughter was standing. Standing and staring at her with an expression akin to absolute reverence. As if looking at a goddess that had just revealed herself to mortals. "Gilly, you need to make sure that you don't repeat anything I just said, all right?"

"But you were  _awesome_!"

She sighed, shaking her head slightly. But was interrupted from another attempt at reasoning with her daughter by his grandfather's voice.

"You know, in all honesty..." Antonio glanced toward his grandfather, who was currently shaking his head, looking like he was trying not to smile. "Well, in all honesty, if you hadn't done that, I probably would have punched her myself. So it probably is good that you did it. It's probably best that we not actually break her jaw. No matter how much she deserves it."

And Gill's madre had laughed, shaking her head as she murmured to herself in German for a few seconds. Then they had slowly dispersed, Gill's family taking both Feliciana and Francis with them while Uncle Ferdinand drove them back to their house.

And that had all happened two days ago.

Since then, Antonio had only been able to visit Lovi once—with his madre. And she'd been asleep at the time, so it hadn't been a very helpful visit...

But the doctors had said something interesting to his madre then. He probably wasn't supposed to hear it, but he'd listened as they spoke outside Lovi's door, as he sat inside and stroked her hair and face.

The doctor had said that she hadn't spoken since she'd been brought in. Not to the nurses. Not to the doctors. Not to her parents. Not to any visitors. Not to anyone. She just sat on the bed and pointed at things she wanted...

...But that didn't matter. Antonio was determined that it didn't matter. Because Lovi was coming home! He clenched the vase even more tightly in his arms as he watched the houses of her neighbourhood flash by. Lovi would be all right once she got home... And there was her house...and her parents' car was pulling into the driveway.

"Lovi!" He called her name, bouncing up and down in his seat. He'd get to see her soon and give her a big hug and give her the flowers...

Ugh, but he had to wait as his mom parked by the side of the road. Stupid child locks. He wanted to jump out and run to Lovi, not wait in the car...

It seemed like forever before he heard the click of the door being unlocked. And like forever and  _ever_  before he could actually get the door open.

But then he was free. Free. And he was immediately running down to the car. Lovi's padre stepped out of the car, walking to the side and opening the door, reaching inside...

And there she was...

Lovi. Lovi with a pout on her face, arms crossed over her chest as she was lifted from the car. Lovi in a little pink dress, ribbon drooping from its place in her curls. Just like always. Just like she always looked. The only thing different was that now one of her legs was encased in a hot pink cast. And she was being held. She'd usually never let anyone hold her, especially her father. She'd be yelling at him and struggling, not just sitting there docilely.

"Lovi! Lovi!" Antonio ran forward, almost tripping over a sandal that had been left in the grass. Probably one of Feli's. He barely paid it any mind. All he cared about right now was Lovi. Lovi, safe and sound. Not lost. Not gone. Not lying in a hospital bed...

And now she had turned her head toward him. And her eyes were intent on him, blinking once, before she started to squirm around.

Her father seemed a little surprised, but then he shrugged and set her on the grass. "You want to see Antonio, Lovina?"

She didn't answer, just continued to stare at him as he slowed to a stop. She was just looking at him...

Lovi.

He hesitated, then smiled and dropped down beside her, handing her the vase of flowers. "I brought you pretty flowers, Lovi, see? Do you like them?"

...She didn't respond, just stared at them for a moment. And then set them on the grass...

And suddenly a pair of arms slid around his neck...

She was hugging him.

Lovi was willingly hugging him. And pressing her face against his chest, as if scared that he'd try to escape from her.

And that's when Antonio knew that something was very  _very_ wrong.


	15. Chapter 15

They were yelling again. Even louder than usual. Lovina could make out a few words this time... 'Daughter' and 'leave' and her name and Feli's...

She snuggled farther under her covers, pulling the comforter over her head in hopes that it would muffle the sound of her parents' shouting. Why were they yelling? She didn't understand.

And it didn't help; it just made it too hot and hard to breathe and  _dark_...

She didn't like the dark. She'd never liked it before, but now she really didn't like it. It made her think of being in the scary woods with monsters around that wanted to gobble her up, and thinking that no one would ever come and get her.

And now their voices suddenly got even louder, like they'd opened the door to their room or moved out to the hallway. "I swear, this is the last straw! You've always been a bitch to her, but wanting to leave her out there to die?"

Lovina covered her ears with her hands. She didn't want to hear this. She didn't want to hear her mommy and daddy screaming at each other. And she didn't want to hear her mommy laugh and say "Don't try to act to high and mighty. You didn't want her either... If it weren't for that  _brat_ , you could've gone off and married that slut that you were so enamoured with."

"Don't talk about her like that!" Lovi had never heard her daddy sound so angry before. "Don't  _ever_ talk about her again!"

Her mother laughed, a scary laugh that made Lovi hide farther under the covers as she shivered. "You would have been happy then, right? You still think about her, don't you? You're still in love with her, that slut..."

"You're one to talk!" And now her daddy was yelling again. Yelling. Daddy never used to yell. He usually just sat there and let Mommy do whatever she wanted. It was scary. She just wanted them to stop. Why wasn't Feli here? Why wouldn't Feli wake up and come and stay with her? It'd be less scary if she had Feli. Or Antonio. She wanted Antonio...

And suddenly she heard a loud crash coming from the direction of the voices and then more screeching, this time the words coming so fast that she couldn't understand most of what was said.

And then there was stomping; stomping going past her room and then down the stairs and then the entire house shook at the force of the front door being slammed shut.

...And there was silence.

Lovina barely dared to breathe as she clutched her blankets tightly to her chest and trembled, terrified that the screaming would start again. Or maybe something worse would happen?

But nothing did. The house was quiet. Completely quiet.

It took Lovina probably about ten minutes to stop trembling. And then she sat up and finally started to cry, harsh sobs wracking through her entire body, making her stomach lurch painfully, barely able to breathe. She covered her face with a pillow to muffle the sounds, not wanting anyone to hear. Especially not Mommy...

She was crying so hard that she didn't even notice the sudden gust of wind that blew across her face, rustling her hair. She also didn't hear the soft grunt as a figure pulled himself up through the window and then dropped onto the floor.

She  _did_ , however, feel when a pair of arms wrapped around her and she was tugged back against a warm chest.

And then a voice softly whispered in her ear, "No llores, Lovi."

Antonio.

Lovina immediately turned around toward the voice, staring up into the bright green eyes that were gazing down at her, the bright smile that she'd grown so used to seeing. She immediately pushed her blankets away and moved closer, climbing up so she was sitting on his lap and could snuggle against him.

Antonio blinked in surprise at the motion, but then responded by brushing his fingers through her hair, humming a lullaby softly in her ear. "I'm so sorry, Lovi. That must have been so scary for you. But I'm here now, okay?"

It felt nice. She liked it when he played with her hair; not that she'd ever say so, because that would be stupid.

"Why won't you talk to anyone, Lovi? We need to know why you were in those woods all alone."

No, she didn't want to talk about being in the woods. The woods had been scary and she didn't want to think about them ever ever again.

"Did someone tell you to go out there, Lovi?"

She buried her face in his chest, gripping at his shirt with her hands. She didn't want to talk about it. She'd been scared. She didn't want to think about it...

"Hey, Tonio!"

And now she looked up, startled by the sudden shout coming from the other side of the room...

"Tonio, give me a hand up!"

And was even more startled when she noticed that Gillian was peeking up over the windowsill, grinning at them excitedly as she reached her arms up, obviously hoping that he'd walk over and help her into the room.

Antonio just laughed in response, not moving from his spot on the bed. Something Lovina was rather happy about, since she was comfortable and didn't want him to move... "I thought that you were going to wait outside, Gill."

"Nein, that's boring! Besides, we need to come in and make Lovi's cast awesome!"

We? Lovina was a little surprised by the statement. What did she mean by  _we_?

"Gillian, could you please get inside? You're heavy."

"Ve~ I wanna come in too!"

"Hurry up, Gilly, it's cold out here!"

Why were the potato bastard, her sister, Gillian, and Francis all standing outside her window? Lovina glanced up at Antonio, who just looked amused. Stupid. Why was he acting like this was normal. And then he glanced down and looked at her and  _smiled_. "Isn't that nice, Lovi? Everyone came to see you!"

Oh, yes, lovely. He better not be thinking of moving her...

This was apparently exactly what he was thinking, as he began to squirm around, moving her slightly off of his lap... Apparently heading over to the window to help Gillian inside.

No! She immediately clung to his arms, digging her nails into the skin and earning a sharp yelp from the boy. "No!"

And he immediately froze, looking shocked by her sudden exclamation. "Ah...no?"

"No! Don't go away!"

And suddenly she heard laughter coming from the window. And then a heavy thump, coupled with a grunt from outside. "It would figure that the first thing that Lovi says after being mute for a week is 'No'." Gillian sauntered across the room, ignoring the glare she received from the little girl, and then dropped down to her knees in front of her, grinning brightly. "Hey, kid, you feeling better?"

Lovina just glared back, not liking how close the other girl was... and then she yelped as Gillian suddenly reached down and tugged her cast out from under the covers and into sight. Not that it actually hurt, but she'd startled her.

"Gillian, don't hurt her..."

"I'm not. The awesome me needs to be the first one to sign her cast!" She laughed, then reached into her back pocket and pulled out a marker, which she uncapped with her teeth before settling down on the bed and tugging the ankle on her lap. "Wait'll you see how awesome I make it! I bet'cha  _everybody_ in the whole school'll be jealous of you!"

Lovina attempted to pull her foot back, but Gillian was holding much too tightly to escape, so she finally just gave in and scowled at her. Or scowled at her until she heard another thump from near the window and she looked across the room to see Francis standing inside, reaching out for a moment before tugging her little sister into sight.

Why wasn't Feli asleep in her own bed anyway? She hadn't thought her sister was having a sleepover... Then again, Feli was the one that everyone liked, so it wouldn't be surprising if she'd been invited to a sleepover and hadn't told her sister.

She'd have to yell at her later. At the moment, she was more interested in the fact that now Francis reached outside again and this time, with quite a lot more effort, tugged up the stupid potato. Who was holding a big bouquet of dandelions in his hand.

Lovina blinked in surprise, sitting up straight as he glanced toward her, a nervous blush crossing over his face as he met her rather surprised expression. "Um..." He walked toward her until he was standing only a few feet away, then thrust out the bouquet like he wanted to get it as far away from himself as possible. "Mutti said that flowers make people feel better."

Lovi just stared at the little yellow flowers, completely surprised by the sudden gift.

"Aw, mira eso, que lindo!" And she was suddenly being snuggled to death by Antonio. "Ludwig wants to make sure you get better, Lovi!"

She squeaked, struggling in an attempt to escape, but then gave up. Not because she wanted to be snuggled, but because it wasn't helping anything to move around, besides making him squeeze her more. So instead she turned back to stare at the flowers before reaching out and taking them, unsure of what she should say. It was the stupid  _potato_  giving her flowers... What was she supposed to do if the stupid potato was giving her 'get better' flowers? "Ah..."

Francis suddenly interrupted her. Jerk. As he jumped onto the bed, earning an irritated yelp from Gillian in the process—"You almost made me mess up my awesome signature!"

He ignored her, scooting over to Lovina and laughing at the suspicious glare she sent his way. "Are you feeling better, ma chéri? Antoine and I were spending the night at Gilly's house and since Antoine was worrying so much over you, I said that we should come and visit you."

This rather surprised Lovina. They'd been worried about her? Even the stupid potato?

And then Feliciana suddenly jumped up beside Francis ("Quit bouncing around! I'm not done with my awesome drawing yet!") and threw her arms tightly around her older sister's neck. "Ve~ isn't it nice? We can all have a sleepover!"

Antonio laughed at this, glancing around at the five people who'd managed to squeeze onto the bed—the only one who was still standing on the floor was a still-nervous Ludwig. "Can we all fit?"

"Ve~ Of course!" She immediately scooted closer to her sister, until the two were completely pressed against each other, and then giggled as she waved at Ludwig. "Ludwig~ Ludwig~ Come sit on the bed with us!"

He immediately flushed, staring at the small spot of space that Feliciana had created. But then gave in and walked over, sitting down on the bedspread without making the bed move. Or, it didn't move until Feliciana threw herself at him and squealed in excitement about a sleepover.

"Quit bouncing around!"

...Lovina had never had a sleepover before. Especially not a sleepover with this many people, all crowded around her. It was—comforting... She was pretty sure that the scary monsters wouldn't come to get her with so many people around her, at least. And she felt so nice and warm, with Antonio cuddling her as she sat on his lap. And Francis was sitting on Antonio's other side, laughing as he began to play with her hair... She would have smacked him, but she was too comfortable to move. Plus, he was now braiding it and it felt rather nice...

Feliciana was snuggled against her side, probably already fast asleep. Even the stupid potato wasn't being completely stupid...

"Haha! The awesome is done! This cast has just officially become awesome! Who wants to sign it next?"

Antonio laughed. "I'd sign it, but I don't think Lovi wants to move..."

He better not move her, or she'd headbutt him in the stomach. Jerk.

"I will," Francis suddenly let go of her hair, earning a soft mew of discomfort in the process that she definitely hadn't expected to make. He just laughed and scooted down the bed, Gill moving to take his place as he took the marker in hand and stared down at the cast.

"Gilly, you haven't left much room for anyone else..."

"That's because awesome needs space to express their true awesome. Don't worry, we'll find room. We've gotta get everyone in the school to sign it after all. Because awesome casts need to have lots of awesome—but less-awesome than me—people sign them!"

And at this Lovina nuzzled her face even more tightly against Antonio's chest. Because there was no way she was going to let them see the faint smile that was crossing over her lips...

Idiots.


	16. Omake #3: Happy Birthday to the Hero

"Guess what, Mattie! Guess what! Guess what!"

And this was why Mattea hated the fourth of July.

"Ally, stop bouncing on my bed…" Her sister was annoying every day, pretty much. You got used to it after a while: the loudness, the constant need for attention. But the fourth of July was one of two days in the year (the other being Christmas) when Ally's annoyingness reached levels that should not be attainable by mortals.

Which was why Mattie responded to her words by rolling over, grabbing her pillow, and pulling it over her head. What time was it? She could see through her window that it was still dark outside. She didn't even want to look at her alarm clock, in fear of what it would say.

"But, Mattie~!" Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. "Guess what day it is! Guess what day it is!"

Mattie never did anything like this on  _her_ birthday—which had been three days ago, incidentally. So why why  _why_  did her sister have to be so hyperactive on hers?

"Mattie! Wake up~!"

She knew that if she didn't get up, Ally would just keep jumping on her. And, as fun as the idea of having her sister using her stomach as a trampoline sounded, she really did not want to have to deal with the pain that she had a tendency to cause when she forgot to moderate her possibly inhuman strength.

"Okay, okay, I'm getting up."

"Yay!" And suddenly Mattea was being strangle-hugged by an overly excited Ally. "Let's go wake up Mommy and Daddy!"

Mattie just sighed, as her sister didn't even wait for her to reply; instead, she flew out of the room, presumably to subject their parents to the same rude awakening that she'd forced upon her sister. Which, Mattie was hoping, would lead to her mommy or daddy scolding Ally for waking them up so early and force her to go back to bed.

Which might mean that she could go back to sleep and get at least a couple more hours of shut-eye before she was forced to deal with her overly-excited sister.

Mattie immediately rolled onto her side and pulled her blanket up to her nose. At the very least, she was going to  _try_ to get some of that extra time.

~.~.~

"Happy birthday to me~ Happy birthday to me~ Happy birthday to the hero~! Happy birthday to me~!"

Mattie sighed, as she noticed yet another group of older ladies giggling in amusement as her sister sung through the song for the sixth time in the past few minutes… Mattie was about two seconds from strangling her, just to get her to be quiet.

"All right, sweetie, I think we've gotten the point," their dad finally remarked, chuckling as he glanced over at their mother, who flashed him a thankful look. Apparently Mattie wasn't the only one who was getting irritated by Ally's incessant noise.

Still, Matite supposed that it was okay. Because it  _was_ Ally's birthday and they had been having a lot of fun today. She'd been woken up again this morning—this time at a more reasonable hour—by her mother, who had made a huge platter of bacon and eggs and pancakes (with lots and lots and lots of maple syrup) for Ally's birthday breakfast. Then, Daddy had brought out the stack of brightly coloured presents that Ally may or may not have found earlier and spent a few hours shaking and rattling around in an attempt to guess at the contents.

And  _then_ , Mommy and Daddy had taken them to the Fourth of July festival that their town was having, giving them tickets once they'd arrived—Daddy had said that nine-years-old was plenty big enough to go on rides by yourself—and letting them run off to do whatever they wanted…

Ally had immediately wanted to go on the big rides, staring up in delight at the gigantic spinning Twirl N' Hurl… (or at least, that was what everyone called it; it's real name was the Tornado or something like that, but Twirl N' Hurl had become much more popular as a name for reasons that Mattie didn't like to think about).

"I wanna go on it, Mattie!"

"No."

"But, Mattie~!" There'd been whining; of course there'd been whining, as Ally tugged on her sleeve and stared up at the ride. "It's my birthday! You're supposed to be nice to me on my birthday!"

This coming from the girl who had pulled on her ponytail on her birthday and then pushed her into the pool with all her clothes on.

"I'm not going on the scary ride with you. You can go alone if you wanna so bad."

"But, Mattie! I don't wanna go alone!" People were starting to look at them, as Ally tugged and whined and pleaded…

And Mattie had given in. Because she had a tendency to do that when it came to her sister and, if she were perfectly honest, she thought the ride actually looked pretty cool. So they'd gotten in line and moved forward inch by inch. And, as they neared the front, Ally had started to grow quieter…and quieter…and had started to pale a little bit as she watched the passengers spin around and scream like they were terrified.

…Let's just say that the ride had been aptly named by the residents of their town. Although, thankfully, Ally had been able to hold it until she'd actually gotten off the ride and stumbled over to a trash can.

They'd sat down for a while after that, until Ally felt a little better. Then they'd gone off to ride on the kiddie rides; the little roller coaster and the spinning dinosaurs and the train. And they'd  _conveniently_ —Mattie was pretty sure they'd been following them—run into their parents when Ally started to get hungry and began to complain that she wanted a hamburger.

All in all, Mattea thought it had been a pretty amazing day.

Although, the best part was yet to come… As long as Ally shut up and stopped singing 'Happy Birthday' to herself.

"All right, girls, find us a good seat," their daddy told them, motioning toward the grassy area where people were already setting down blankets and towels and laying back in preparation of the best part of the fair.

The fireworks.

Ally immediately grabbed Mattea's hand and tugged her forward, weaving around the people until they found a spot devoid of any other towels or blankets or people. Ally beamed, dropping her sister's hand and running to the centre, beaming up at the sky happily. "Here! It's perfect!"

Mattie nodded in agreement. It really was; no trees blocking their view, relatively free of other people…

Their parents walked over, much more slowly than their daughters. Ally was bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet as she waited for them to come over. "It's perfect, isn't it?"

"Definitely," their father agreed, leaning over when he reached her to ruffle her hair approvingly. "You're good at this. You should always pick our spot."

Ally beamed back, obviously loving the praise.

Then he moved on, unrolling the blanket he'd been carrying under his arm and sitting down, their mother resting beside him before motioning for the girls to join them.

Ally immediately obeyed, dropping down onto their father's lap and snuggling against his chest, burying her face in the worn, soft leather of his favourite bomber jacket. Mattie sat down next to their mother, smiling as her mommy slid an arm around her and drew her against her side; fingers gently began playing with her hair…

"Ally, Mattie, I need to tell you girls something." Unfortunately, her happy comfort was interrupted by the sudden more serious tone that filled their father's voice. "You're going to need to be very brave, big girls for me, okay?"

Ally looked up, frowning a tiny bit as she gripped his jacket in her fist. "What's wrong, Daddy?"

He sighed, giving her a tight hug before explaining. "You know how Daddy sometimes has to go fly his airplane to keep people safe, sweetie?"

Ally nodded. "When you're being a hero, right?"

He smiled slightly, nodding once as he stroked her short hair and then continued, "Well, I need to go out again; I'm leaving tomorrow morning. And I'm going to be gone for quite a while. Longer than I usually am."

Ally's grip on his jacket instantly tightened. "But I don't want you to go away, Daddy."

"I don't want to go away either, sweetie. But you need to be a brave girl for me, okay? You need to take care of your mommy and sister while I'm gone."

Mattie snuggled closer to her mother as she felt her grip tighten slightly. And then she looked up; Mommy looked so sad. She didn't want Mommy to look sad.

"I'm going to be like you someday, Daddy." And suddenly Ally sat up straighter, expression determined and a little defiant as she stared right into her father's face. "I'm going to be a hero just like you! And I'm going to help people and keep them safe and…and…and I'll find my very own damsel in distress and save her from whatever she needs saving from!"

For a moment, he looked a little surprised by the sudden exclamation. And then Mattea watched as their father's lips stretched into a wide smile and he ruffled Ally's hair again. "Sounds like a plan if I ever heard one. Although I'm not so sure about the whole 'damsel in distress' thing."

"All heroes need a damsel in distress! I just need to find one." She nodded, staring up at her father with an extremely determined expression. "I'm going to be a hero just like you!"

"Thank you, sweetie. That makes me very happy." He immediately enclosed her in his arms, hugging her tightly… And Mattie suddenly felt a slight dampness against her hair. She looked up, to see a tear slowly run down Mommy's cheek…

She immediately snuggled closer. Don't be sad Mommy. Please, don't be sad. She couldn't understand why Mommy seemed so sad, but she knew that she didn't want her to be.

"I have a special birthday present for you too, Ally." And suddenly their daddy moved Ally from his lap and onto the blanket. And then began to take off his jacket, shaking it out as he held it in front of her. "I want you to take this."

Ally's eyes widened in amazement. "But that's your special jacket, Daddy…"

"I want you to keep it, Al. And I trust that you'll keep it in good condition until I come back. Every time you wear it, you can think of me and how much I love you." Mattie watched as he slipped it around her… It was so big on her; she almost wanted to giggle at how huge it was… But Ally looked as if she'd just been given the entire world, so she didn't…

"I will, Daddy! I will! I'll wear it everyday 'til you come back, Daddy!"

"Good girl. And make sure that when you find your 'damsel in distress' that you wrap him up in that jacket and never let him go. Okay?"

And now Mattie heard Mommy laugh; she looked up, watching as another tear ran down her face. But she was now smiling, still looking a little sad, but she was smiling… "But don't you call him a damsel in distress; that might not go over so well."

Ally just looked confused by this, but hurriedly nodded. "Okay, Mommy." She slipped her arms into the sleeves, which managed to completely cover her hands so she had to push them up really far just to get her fingers to stick out. "I promise."

"Good." And suddenly there was a loud boom, startling Mattie into jumping…Startling Ally into jumping too, although she tried to hide it…

And the sky was immediately lit up with red, white, and blue…

"Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you." Daddy and Mommy pulled both of them into a hug as they sang softly…

"Happy birthday to our hero."

And Mattie joined in at the end, leaning over to give her sister a huge hug. "Happy birthday to you…"

"I love you, sissy…"

Ally smiled and then giggled softly, as they both stared up at the colourful lights. "I love you too."


	17. Chapter 17

The voices were being too noisy.

That was Lovina's first thought when she woke up the next morning. The voices were too noisy; she'd been sleeping, but the noisy voices woke her up.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this. If we get caught—"

"We won't get caught. She's out like a light at her desk, surrounded by empty beer bottles. She's gonna wake up in a few hours with a massive hangover and the last thing she's going to wonder about is if her daughter is okay."

"But this is kidnapping." Lovina slowly slit her eyes open at this. She could recognize the voice, although she had no idea why Gill's daddy would be in her room.

"And if we left her here, it would be endangering the welfare of a child, so hush... Tonio, why don't you pick out Lovi's favourite toys and put them in this bag." And that was Gill's mommy.

Lovina opened her eyes fully now. To see that her sister's face was resting only a few inches from her own. Their bodies were pressed together; she could feel one of her sister's arms around her torso. Actually, now that she thought about it, she could feel two pairs of arms wrapped around her...And something warm was pressed against her back as well.

"Hi, Lovi!"

And now she turned her head, to see firstly that the person behind her happened to be Gill—who was clinging to her like she was an over-sized teddy bear, and secondly that Antonio was standing by the side of the bed with  _her_ dolly.

"Mrs. Gill's mommy said that you're going to get to stay with them for a few days. Do you want to bring Adalina with you?"

For a moment, Lovina just blinked at him in confusion, then hurriedly pushed the arms around her away and sat up straight. "Mine!" she hurriedly exclaimed, as she reached out and grabbed the doll out of his arms.

He just giggled. "Okay, Lovi. I'll get her clothes too." And he immediately skipped over to her toy box...

"Good morning, Lovi." She glanced up now to see Gill's mom standing beside the bed; she leaned down slightly to brush the little girl's messy curls behind her ears. "How would you like to come and stay with us for a little while?"

...Stay with them? Lovina blinked in surprise at the question. "Your house?"

Gill's mother nodded, flashing the girl a fond smile. "Yes, you and Feli can stay at our house for a few days. Would you like that?"

"Why? Won't Mommy be angry?" She snuggled her doll closer and glanced around the room. Gill's daddy was kneeling by her dresser, pulling out some of her outfits and shoving them into a dark blue backpack. She frowned as she noticed him picking out the white dress that Mommy had made her wear to that mean lady from church's wedding... She'd gotten yelled at because she  _accidentally_ spilled punch on one of the other lady's dress.

She was distracted enough by this that she missed the expression that crossed over Mrs. Beilschmidt's face. A mixture of anger, pity, and sadness...

And then she leaned down and gently lifted the girl and doll into her arms, smiling again. "I don't think your mother will mind too much."

"What about Daddy?"

"He's—your father had to go away for a little while."

"Why?" She clutched at the woman's sweater with her free hand, frowning down at where her sister and Gillian were all still sleeping. Although Gill was starting to move around a bit, like she was about to wake up.

"Because—" She hesitated for a moment, watching as her husband zipped up the backpack and slung it over his shoulder. "Because I think that he needed to leave for a little bit so he could take some time and think about things."

"When is he coming back?"

"I'm sure he'll come back soon. And even if he doesn't, it'll be okay, right?" Lovina gripped her dolly tighter as she glanced down toward where Antonio was now standing, holding a pile of dolly clothes in his arms, and staring up at her. "We're trying to get in contact with your grandpa now so he can come and visit you. Won't that be fun?"

"Mutti?" And Lovina was saved from having to answer—she had never even met her grandfather, so how was  _she_ supposed to know if it would be fun?—by Gill waking up. The girl stared up at them, obviously out of it, as she didn't even seem to realize who they were for a couple minutes. Then she sat up, staring up at her mother with a rather surprised expression. "Mutti? What are you doing here?"

The woman frowned slightly, moving Lovi so she was now resting against her hip, and reached down with her free hand to pat her daughter sharply on the head. "What did you think you were doing, Gillian? You almost scared your father and me to death. We wake up this morning and all of you are gone! You're lucky that we decided to check here before calling the police."

"But, Mutti." Her voice took a whining tone as she rubbed at her head. "We had to come and sign Lovi's cast. 'Sides, she was all alone!"

"I'm not saying that your reason was bad, but you can't just leave the house in the middle of the night like that without telling us."

"But, Mutti~"

Her mother frowned, holding out her hand in a way that plainly stated, 'we're done talking about this'. Gill pouted in response, glaring across the room at where Lovina now noticed Francis was sitting on top of  _her_ chair. She immediately sent him a glare, which he just answered with a very smug grin.

Stupid Francis. That was  _her_ chair.

"We're going to be taking Lovi and Feli to our house for a little bit, Gilly." Her attention was distracted from Francis as Mrs. Beilschmidt shifted her weight again in her arms and then glanced toward her husband. "Do we have all her stuff?"

He nodded, bending over to pick up another backpack—to add to the one that he was already carrying—that Lovina hadn't noticed before. This one was red. "Yes. I think I got enough clothes for both of them; if we need more, we have Gill's old things. Now let's go before their mother wakes up."

"All right." Lovina was shifted again, forcing her to grab onto her sweater in fear that she was going to fall. "Let's go then."

"Are we stealing Lovi and Feli?" Francis suddenly piped up from his seat, regaining Lovina's attention and scowl. Stupid...

"No." Gill's mother was rubbing at her back now. Lovina leaned slightly into the touch. Mmm, it felt nice. "We're just going to be taking them away for a little bit, since their mother is having a little bit of trouble at the moment..."

"Awesome!" And now Gill jumped up from the bed and grabbed onto the bottom of her mother's shirt. Lovina kicked at her head in irritation. "So are we being kidnappers? That's totally awesome! But shouldn't we be wearing awesome masks or dressed in black or something, Mutti?"

Lovina watched as Gill's daddy started turning a funny red colour and then he sighed and pressed his hand against his face as he mumbled something under his breath. "Gilly... Gilly, taking people away without asking permission is wrong. You should never  _ever_ do it, all right?"

Lovina felt the woman holding her snort at this. "Unless their mother is an evil witch who should have never been allowed to have children in the first place. Then it's perfectly fine." And she now turned and walked out of the room.

Ludwig was standing outside, nervously shifting his weight between his feet. Although he seemed to relax as his mother stepped into view and rustled his hair as she passed. "Good job standing watch, Ludwig. How about I make some yummy wurst for everyone when we get back to the house?"

"Leni!" And suddenly Gill's dad burst out of the room, carrying a still-sleeping Feliciana in his arms. Gill and Antonio following. "Schatzi, you can't tell our daughter that it's okay to kidnap people!"

"I can even make some pasta for you and your sister, if you'd like that."

"Leni!"


	18. Chapter 18

"I think that Sadiq and those bigger boys know why Lovina was out in the woods."

Antonio was rather startled by the sudden statement, since he and Francis had been spending the last few minutes sitting silently beside each other on the swings, kicking their feet back and forth lazily as they watched the grown-ups prepare their picnic.

Sadiq might know why Lovi was in the woods all by herself that day? Antonio hadn't even considered that idea. Actually, he hadn't really thought at all about why Lovina was out there; he'd been too relieved over just knowing that she was okay. Now he considered the idea, though. Sadiq might know why Lovi had gotten hurt...

He frowned to himself, although he chose not to verbally respond to the statement. Instead, he watched as his and Gill's madre set bowls of different kinds of salads, bags of potato chips, and other foods out on the picnic table. Gillian was hovering around them, occasionally reaching out to nick a chip or egg or cookie from one of the plates, occasionally getting her hand smacked by her mother in the process. Her padre was standing near the grill, Ludwig watching as it smoked furiously. His papá was now yelling at it in German... Antonio didn't understand how this was supposed to help the hamburgers and wurst cook faster, but he supposed that he must have a reason for doing it.

Finally he responded. "Lovi won't tell anyone why she was in those woods. Not Gilly's madre or padre. Or mi madre." His gaze flickered now toward the bench where Lovina was sitting next to her sister, licking at a strawberry ice cream cone that Gill's mamá had bought her.

"Have  _you_ asked her? Lovina would probably tell  _you_  what happened..."

Antonio frowned, shaking his head slightly. No, he hadn't asked her... Lovi always seemed so upset when anyone brought up what had happened while she was lost. He wanted to keep her happy, so he'd just decided not to bother her about it. Besides, she was safe now. And that's all that mattered, right?

"Chicos!" Antonio immediately jumped turned his head at the sound of his madre's voice, who was waving at them from under the pavilion. "Lunch is ready!"

Francis was immediately on his feet and hurrying toward the tables. "Come on, Antoine! Your maman wants us!"

Antonio just grinned and rose, much more slowly than his friend. And started walking toward the pavilion at a much slower pace. This gave him a few extra moments to think over what Francis had said, without anyone around to distract him...

Sadiq might know why Lovi was in the woods all alone. Maybe he'd seen her there? Antonio frowned, but then why wouldn't he tell anyone? Or maybe—and he stopped dead in his tracks at this thought. What if Sadiq had been the one to take her there?

He immediately started walking again, not realizing that he was now frowning—the expression one that was incredibly foreign to his usual bright, cheerful face. Sadiq didn't like Lovi. He knew that; Sadiq had always made it very clear that he thought Lovina was a nuisance who shouldn't be allowed to play with them.

And Lovi... Not that she'd ever admit it, but Antonio was well-aware of the fact that Lovina really was very lonely when he wasn't around. She didn't really have any friends besides him, his friends, and her sister. So... What if Sadiq had asked her to come out to the woods with him? She would have said yes, most likely...

Antonio immediately shook the half-formed thought out of his head. No, he shouldn't assume anything until he'd talked to Lovi. If those boys did know why she was in the woods, then he should talk to them. Tell them that they shouldn't be mean like that again. Lovi could have... Something really bad could have happened to Lovi.

But he'd ask Lovi first. He'd just ask her if Sadiq and the other boys had taken her out to the woods. Then he'd know...

He now walked faster, making his way to the pavilion and to the empty seat beside Francis and across from Gill, who was munching on a chocolate chip cookie that she must have snuck away while her mother wasn't looking.

His mamá leaned across the table, setting a plate of food in front of him. "What would you like, Francis?"

Antonio noticed that Francis immediately sat up straighter at the question, his cheeks starting to flush lightly. "Ah... whatever you made, Mademoiselle Gabrielle..."

She laughed, turning back to the bowls and starting to fill another plate with food. "Well, Leni and I both worked on most of this..."

Gill's mother nodded, before smacking Gill's hand with a spoon as it darted out toward the cookies again. "Ja. And don't you even think about it, Gillian. I saw you grab the last one."

"But, Mutti~!"

And now Gillian's father walked under the pavilion, carrying a plate of rather blackened hamburgers and wurst, which he set down in front of his wife with a rather embarrassed cough. "Ah, it's a little over-done..."

Francis's expression of distaste was obvious even to Antonio, who almost giggled. Francis was always so picky about his food.

"It looks fine..." Then again, Gill's madre didn't really look like she thought it was fine, as she was giving it a look like Francis... "Why don't you go get the girls while Gabi and I serve everyone?"

To which Gill's padre nodded, glancing back toward Ludwig who had followed him over and was now eyeing the bowls of food with a bemused expression. "Ah, ja, you can start eating if you want..." And he hesitated for another moment, eyeing the plate as if wanting to say something. But then left, walking toward Lovina and Feliciana without another word. Poor Gill's papa.

Especially since Gill's mamá leaned forward as soon as he was out of earshot and whispered, "Just pretend to eat it. I'll buy you pizza afterwards."

"Yay, pizza!" Gill bounced excitedly in her seat at that, leaning forward and grabbing another cookie and stuffing it into her mouth before her mother could react. Earning a glare and a threatening wave of the spoon in her mother's hand.

His mother just laughed, setting Francis's plate in front of him with a light pat on his head, which just caused Francis's flush to deepen. "Leni, you're horrible. I don't know why you even had him attempt to grill... After what happened last time..."

She shrugged. "Luca needs to learn how to cook  _something_  at some point. He can barely boil water right now. Besides, it's rather entertaining to watch him try."

Antonio always enjoyed spending time with Gill and Ludwig's family. They were so funny. And it was especially fun when Lovi and Feli were with them.

Ever since Lovi and Feli had started staying with Gill's family, they'd done lots of fun things together. They'd gone to the zoo, the pool, the fair... Antonio hoped that Lovi never had to go back to her mamá. Since she was mean and always seemed angry at Lovi... He wasn't sure if that would happen though. Since he knew that Gill's madre had said something about her abuelo coming, but Antonio hadn't seen him yet. He'd asked his mamá about it and she'd said that Gill's madre was trying to find 'someone who was willing to take responsibility for the girls' but was having trouble. Which he assumed meant that maybe her abuelo was hiding...

Although it also seemed to have something to do with Gill's mamá yelling at people over the phone sometimes and then throwing the telephone across the room so it banged against the wall. Then she'd start yelling in German and Gill's padre would give them ice cream and tell them to go outside for a bit.

So maybe it meant that someone was hiding Lovi's abuelo? Which wouldn't be very nice, since Antonio knew that Feli and Lovi both wanted to meet him. Even if Lovi said she didn't. She would always hide with him in the kitchen when they heard the grown-ups talking about him and saying things like 'fraternal', 'paternal', and 'birth father'. Which hadn't made much sense to him, but he assumed had something to do with why Lovi's abuelo wasn't coming.

And now he was brought out of his thoughts, as Gill's father was now returning with Lovi nestled in his arms as Feliciana tagged along behind. Lovi had finished her ice cream apparently; Feli was still licking at hers, her unoccupied hand clenched around the man's shirt and smearing it with the chocolate ice cream that was already covering most of her face and the front of her dress.

"Feli..." And now his madre walked toward the little girl, grabbing a napkin off the table and kneeling down to wipe at her face. "What a mess."

Gill's padre, meanwhile, settled Lovi into the seat beside Antonio before walking back toward his wife. Lovina just sat there for a moment, scowling at the others before she noticed Antonio's plate and immediately reached up to grab at one of the slices of tomato in his salad.

"Lovi~ that's my food."

Not that Antonio expected her to listen, as she just glared at him and snatched the slice. "No! Mine!"

Anyway, it didn't matter. Since now she was here and the adults weren't really paying attention to what they were doing. As his madre was cleaning Feli off, Gill's mamá was making Ludwig a plate of food, and Gill's padre was poking at the meat as if not sure whether he should actually serve it or not...

"Lovi." He leaned close, catching her attention as he picked up another slice of tomato and held it out to her. "I'll give you all the rest of my tomatoes if you tell me something."

The little girl looked up at him suspiciously, fingers hesitating a few inches from the fruit, as if half-expecting him to suddenly yank it away from her. " _All_  the tomatoes?"

Antonio nodded. "Sí! Todos los tomates! I just want you to tell me something, okay?"

She hesitated for another moment, and then nodded once before grabbing the tomato from his hand and popping it into her mouth. "Sí."

Antonio giggled. Lovi was so cute. And this would be worth losing all of his tomatoes—especially since he had lots and lots at home that he could eat, as he'd just helped madre harvest all the ripe ones yesterday.

He paused for a moment and then leaned in close, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Lovi, when you were in the scary woods..." She immediately tensed, but Antonio leaned even closer, forcing her to listen. "Lovi, did Sadiq take you out there?"

"N—"

She was shivering slightly and he hurriedly interrupted her. "Lovinita, Sadiq took you there, right? He took you there and then left you all alone with all the scary monsters, sí?"

And she was staring at him now, eyes wide with fear. Staring at him.

And Antonio knew the answer. It made sense... Sadiq didn't like Lovi and when he and Francis had been asking about her, he'd looked like he didn't want his friend to answer... He'd taken Lovi there. He'd taken Lovi to the woods and left her all alone. Poor little Lovi! She must have been so scared and sad and lonely and...poor Lovi!

"S—sí... But, but I wasn't scared! I wasn't! Stupid!" And now she suddenly hit his arm. Not hard enough to hurt. Especially since Antonio was already lost in his thoughts. Not even paying attention as his madre immediately hurried over and picked the little girl up, cooing to her in Spanish.

No. No. He was thinking about Sadiq. And how mean he had been. What if something really bad had happened to Lovi? What if they hadn't found her? What if a bad man grabbed Lovi and stole her away? Lovi could have been lost forever...

And he suddenly felt a wave of anger wash through him. He could have lost Lovi forever. She would have been gone forever. And those boys wouldn't have cared...

Well, he'd make them care. He'd show them how he angry he was with them. For hurting little Lovi. For scaring her and hurting her and almost making her go away forever...

...Sí. He'd make them sorry they'd ever hurt his little Lovinita.


	19. Chapter 19

"Halt! Who goes there? Identify yourself, foolish mortal!"

Antonio immediately paused, startled by the sudden voice coming from...somewhere. He glanced around, attempting to identify the source of the shout. He couldn't actually see anyone...

He'd never actually been back here before, since he didn't come over to Arthur's house very often. And when he did, it was usually just to stand out on the front porch while Gill pushed on the doorbell button a few dozen times until Arthur appeared to yell at her. He'd never been in the backyard.

There was a rabbit hutch near a small storage shed, he noticed. About five rabbits were currently sitting within their fenced-in yard, staring and twitching their noses at him...

"I said identify yourself, foolish mortal!" The shout startled him, but now at least he could identify its source. He looked up, to see Arthur sitting on a branch almost directly above his head, wearing his pirate hat and pointing his wooden sword toward him.

"Hola, Arthur. What are you doing?"

Arthur scowled in response, kicking his feet back and forth as he eyed him rather distastefully. The two of them had never really gotten along very well, so it wasn't surprising that he wasn't exactly thrilled to see him...

But Antonio was willing to put all of that behind him for now—even the boat incident. Because he needed him right now. If he was going to get back at those boys who left his little Lovi out in the woods...

"I'm practicing my magic, so you'd better be careful or I'll curse you!"

Although that remark was enough to distract even a little Spanish boy on a mission to avenge his little princess. "Really? You can curse people? Gill tried to curse one of her teachers before and it didn't work."

Arthur scooted over on the branch toward the trunk, using it to climb onto the lower branches until he was close enough to the ground to risk jumping. "That's 'cause she didn't ask the faeries to help her. You can only curse someone if the faeries help you."

"But you're the only one who can see the faeries." Antonio had never really understood that. Francis had said that Arthur was just being silly and that there weren't any faeries, but Antonio wasn't sure. After all, his mamá told him stories about faeries all the time and if she said that faeries existed, then they existed.

Although he did wonder why Arthur was wearing his pirate hat if he was doing magic. Pirates didn't do magic...

"Why are you here?" And he was brought back to the present as the smaller boy stomped up to him, his arms crossed over his chest as he scowled up at him. "You never come to my house."

Ahh. Antonio couldn't believe that he'd almost forgotten his reason for coming. "Ah, I almost forgot. I wanted to ask you something, Arthur."

Arthur blinked once. "What sort of something?"

"Your papá..." He didn't miss the sudden tension in the smaller boy's expression at the single word. Antonio knew that Arthur didn't like to talk about his padre, unless it was talking about the toys and things that he bought for him. "Your papá is friends with Señor Køhler, right?"

"Mr. Køhler?" Arthur repeated. Then nodded once. "Yeah. He and Daddy go out at night all the time… I don't like him. He's big and stupid and when he and Daddy come back, they always act weird and smell funny…"

"You know his son, though? I don't know his name, but he's bigger than us and he rides on a skateboard?"

Arthur immediately scowled, crossing his arms over his chest again. "Yeah. Mathias. He wouldn't let me play in their clubhouse with them because they said I was too little. Gits."

Antonio had no idea what a git was, but he didn't understand a lot of what Arthur said. Besides, that sounded promising. "They have a clubhouse?"

Arthur was pouting now, staring off toward the rabbit's house. "Hmph… I don't need their stupid clubhouse. They're gits anyway."

"Do you know where it is?"

For a moment, Arthur just stared at him in surprise at this question. Then his eyes narrowed slightly, looking rather suspicious. "Why?"

Antonio hesitated for a moment. Should he tell him why he wanted to know where their clubhouse was… Even he wasn't entirely sure what he'd do when he got there. Trash it? It didn't seem bad enough for what they'd done. He wanted…He wanted… He wanted them to have at least a little idea of what Lovina had gone through. How scared she had been… He wanted to make them sorry. He wanted to make sure that they never ever did anything to Lovina ever again.

He glanced off in another direction as he thought. And then froze... Eyes widening slightly as he stared at the object sitting just a few feet away...

And then he hurriedly turned his eyes back to Arthur and laughed, forcing one of his usual brilliant smiles. "I just want to talk to them about something. And it'd be fun to see their clubhouse, sí?"

Arthur snorted and shrugged once. "I doubt they'll let you see it. But whatever. It's in the woods behind Mathias's house. That blue one near Mrs. Finnegan's house, next to the house with the big black dog that Gill got bit by that one time."

Antonio nodded in understanding. "Sí. Muchos gracias!" Now he just had to stall here until Arthur left. Which hopefully wouldn't take too long. Hopefully.

"Artie!" And Antonio was pretty sure he'd never been happier to hear someone's mother calling for them than he was now.

Arthur, on the other hand, didn't seem as happy, as he frowned at the sudden shout coming from his house. "What, mummy?"

"Come in and help me clean up this mess in the living room!"

Definitely not as happy. He sighed, dropping his pirate sword onto the ground. "But I'm not done with my spell yet!" He flashed Antonio a look that plainly read 'It's your fault I'm not done, too'.

"You can finish your spell after dinner. Hurry up before your father comes home!"

Which seemed to be the final push… Arthur groaned and then walked toward the doorway, pausing right outside the door and turning toward the other boy. "Don't tell them that I told you where the clubhouse is, though. I followed them one time to see where they were going and they didn't notice me. Nobody else is supposed to know where it is."

Antonio immediately nodded and smiled in response. "Sí!"

Which was answered with another frown, but then he nodded and hurried into the house.

Leaving Antonio alone in the backyard… Leaving Antonio alone in the backyard with the object that he'd laid eyes on while talking to the smaller boy.

Those boys needed to be taught a lesson. And what better way to teach a lesson than by destroying something close to them? Like that clubhouse…

And in order to destroy a clubhouse, you'd need something big and heavy to crush it and chop it into little tiny pieces, right? And Antonio was sure that Arthur's parents wouldn't mind if he just borrowed the axe for a little while. He'd bring it back, after all. So they shouldn't mind at all. Sí?


	20. Chapter 20

Carrying an axe that was almost as big as you were wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do, Antonio had discovered. Especially when you were going through the woods and the branches kept grabbing at you and scratching at you and it  _hurt_. He could feel wet blood slowly running down his leg as he walked, coming from one of the many scratches that he'd been given by the pricker bushes.

He ignored it, though. Thoughts instead fixated on why he was doing this. For Lovi. He was going to make those boys pay for hurting Lovi. He'd make them never want to hurt her ever again.  _No one_  would ever hurt Lovi again...

At least it wasn't difficult to find the clubhouse. He could see where branches had been bent from where boys had passed through, a few sneaker marks in the mud. It must have been easy for Arthur to follow them to their clubhouse.

And there weren't even any secret traps. He'd been at least expecting a moat filled with crocodiles or a super high wall or maybe some magic spells to make it invisible.

It was actually rather disappointing when he finally stumbled out of a particularly dense pricker-bush and found himself standing in front of a little wooden shack covered with chipping, faded red paint and posters of teenage boys on skateboards.

Just a simple little building, hardly exciting at all.

Antonio frowned slightly as he gazed around the clearing, fingers automatically tightening around the axe's handle. Then he shrugged slightly to himself. It'd be easier to chop it all up like this, right?

He had already decided on his plan. He'd go inside and break everything in there, probably taking some of the bigger things outside so that the boys could immediately see them when they came back. Then he would chop away at the outside until it was completely and totally destroyed. Until it was so destroyed that they'd be afraid to ever  _ever_  be mean to Lovi again.

It was a good plan, especially considering the fact that he'd just come up with it while he was walking here from Arthur's house. Although he only realized just how amazing of a plan it was when he walked over to the little clubhouse and stepped inside...

Eyes immediately widening in a mixture of surprise and delight at the sight that met him... Oh yes, this was an  _excellent_ plan.

~.~.~

Sadiq liked his new friends. He really did; they were a million times cooler than his old friends. But he had realized within the first few days that Matthias could be really annoying sometimes.

"You're getting better at this, Sadiq! You only fell five times!"

Especially when he said something like that. "That's because you kept running in front of me, idiot," Sadiq groaned, glancing down at his knees. His very torn-up knees. His parents were going to  _kill_ him. He was already in huge trouble because he'd snuck out when he was already supposed to be grounded; he was going to die if his parents found out that he'd continued sneaking out when they were at work.

Still, if you were going to ground someone, you really should do something more than just  _tell_ them that they were grounded. Like bolt the windows closed or something.

Anyway, when his mom got home, she'd want to know how he'd gotten hurt. And Sadiq rather doubted she'd believe something like 'oh, I fell down the stairs'.

"What do you guys want to do?" Matthias suddenly blurted out, apparently deciding to ignore Sadiq's remark in favour of turning to where Jakob and Ice were engaged in their own, barely audible conversation. Or possibly non-audible. Sadiq hadn't actually been able to hear them...and it wouldn't actually surprise him if they turned out to be telepathic or something. "We could skate some more. Or we could go back to the clubhouse. I just got this seriously awesome new video game."

"I don't care..." Jakob responded with a rather bored expression. Sadiq was starting to wonder if he could  _make_  any other expressions.

"Then video games it is! Wait 'til you see this game, Sadiq. You get to kill zombies with flamethrowers!" He paused for a few seconds, and then repeated "With  _flamethrowers_!"

Sadiq blinked, quickly glancing down quickly at his watch. He still had a few hours until his parents were home from work—and he was forced to face his mom's wrath when she saw his bloody knees. "All right."

"Awesome!" And immediately Matthias ran on ahead, turning around long enough to shout out. "We'll meet up at the clubhouse, okay? I've gotta go get the game from my house."

"Okay..." Not that Matthias could actually still hear him, but whatever.

And Jakob and Ice were heading off in another direction, probably to their homes. Which meant that he now had to go to the clubhouse all by himself. Something which actually excited him a little bit. After all, it was a  _secret_  clubhouse. Nobody was supposed to know where it was. And his new friends trusted him enough to let him go there alone.

He smirked slightly to himself as he started heading toward the woods. He was so glad that he'd ditched those others—not like he'd ever really enjoyed playing with them, since they always wanted to let _Heracles_ play. And Lovina and Gillian and Feliciana. Stupid  _girls_...

...Girls...

Lovina...

His feet hesitated for a moment in their previously-sure steps toward the clubhouse as the image passed through his mind. Of frightened brown eyes staring up at him as two tiny arms cradled a toy machine gun against her chest.

He didn't feel guilty about it. She was an annoying little  _girl_. It was  _her_  fault for not leaving them alone. Besides, she called him names all the time, she'd kick him in the shins if she didn't get her way, and Antonio would always take her side in anything. She'd be crying because someone had accidentally pushed her over and Antonio would flash the person an accusing look as he attempted to get the stupid girl to stop crying.

Why would he feel bad that she hadn't come home that night? She'd probably just gotten lost because everyone knew that stupid girls did stupid things like get lost in the stupid woods. That wasn't  _his_ fault.

Although he did kind of wonder whether she'd gotten home all right.

It wasn't like he wanted her to get hurt or anything. He just wanted her to get scared so she'd leave him and the others alone...

Sadiq immediately frowned to himself as he kicked a stone that had been resting in front of him. Why was he thinking about her? He had new friends. He didn't need to think about those losers. He'd soon be at his  _new friends_ ' awesome clubhouse. He didn't need to ever think about those others.

Or, at least that's what he thought... Until he ducked his head to make his way beneath the leaves that hid their clubhouse from sight.

And yelled—not screamed, only girls screamed—in shock at the scene that met him.

"Hola, Sadiq..."


	21. Chapter 21

Antonio had been starting to worry that Sadiq wasn't going to show up; he'd been sitting on top of what had once been part of the clubhouse's roof for what seemed like hours, scratching at the wood beneath his feet with the blade of his axe and humming softly to himself. It would have been very sad if Sadiq didn't show up, since he'd worked so hard on making sure that the clubhouse was ready for when he came.

But then he heard the soft crunching of leaves being crushed beneath sneakers and, after a moment, a dark head ducked under the leaves and he slipped into sight. Antonio immediately sat up straighter, waiting as Sadiq looked up.

And his eyes widened in terror, his skin paling to an almost deathly hue as they gazed at each other.

And then he shrieked, leaping back and managing to tangle his hair in the branches behind him.

"Hola, Sadiq." Antonio smiled, now rising to his feet. His arms felt so tired now—swinging an axe around was harder work than he'd thought. All he could really do now was drag it behind him as he slowly climbed down the pile of rubble to stand in front of his...  _friend_.

"Wha—what—how—?" Sadiq was stuttering, grabbing at the branches behind him as if in search of a weapon. Something to protect himself. Antonio's smile flickered for a moment; he wasn't going to hurt him. Sadiq was acting silly for thinking that. His madre had always told him never to hurt anyone, no matter what they did to you.

"You—you destroyed—"

"You hurt Lovi." He stopped when he was only about a foot away from the other boy, fastening accusing green eyes on the other boy's face. "You and the other boys needed to be punished, so I got rid of your clubhouse."

Sadiq still looked terrified, although anger was beginning to stretch across his face as he stared down at the once-functional television set that now lay, cracked and smashed to pieces, at his feet. "I—she was being annoying!" And now he looked up, his lips twisting into an angry scowl as he took a step closer. "You always give in to everything she says! She's a stupid girl! It isn't our fault that no one likes her; why should we be forced to play with her?"

Antonio immediately clutched the axe's handle even tighter, eyes darkening as he glared at the other boy. "Even if you don't like her, that doesn't mean you can be mean to her. Lovi's special! That's why she can play with us!"

"How is she special?" Sadiq had managed to break a branch off and now pulled it in front of him. Not that it would help against an axe, but it was better than nothing.

Antonio scowled. How could anyone not think that Lovi was special? She was so cute and little and adorable and sweet—when she wasn't stomping on his foot or kicking him in the shins for not paying her enough attention.

He could still remember when he'd first met Lovina. It had been right after he'd moved here, when his madre had decided to take him to the park so he could meet some kids his own age. He remembered that he'd been sitting in the sandbox, attempting to build a sand-tomato and failing rather miserably, when a little girl wearing a dirty, light green dress had sat down beside him and proceeded to snatch his shovel right out of his hand.

He'd immediately asked for it back after getting over the initial shock. And she'd just responded with a glare and then "Mine! Stupid."

And that had been the beginning. Something about the little girl had immediately piqued his interest. He began to pepper her with questions—which she refused to answer except with an occasional smack on his head with the shovel—and then he began to ramble about how he'd just moved there and didn't know anyone yet and he used to live with his tio and tia, but now madre had bought a tomato farm...

And she'd just sat there, maybe listening, maybe completely ignoring him. And when he'd asked her what her name was, after quite a long time of just rambling on, she'd looked up and scowled.

But had finally responded.

"Lovina."

And from that moment on, Lovi had been his precious tomatita. They met at the park to play together almost every day; they were hardly ever seen apart. And he'd promised himself that he would always take care of her.

And then Sadiq and his friends had hurt her.

"Lovi is special. You shouldn't have been mean to her. I don't like it when people are mean to my friends." He walked back to the pile of splintered wood, pulling the axe over his head again and then bringing it down with all of the strength in his body onto a formerly-whole piece of wood.

Sadiq winced at the loud crack that broke through the tension surrounding them. His fingers clenched the branch even more tightly, his stomach flipping in terror. What should he do? What should he do? He'd never seen Antonio like this. And now he tensed as Antonio turned. Now... smiling. But not his usual, happy smile. Something definitely not right about this smile.

"It's okay now, though, sí? You've been punished and now you won't ever be mean to Lovi ever again, sí?"

Sadiq gulped, as he now glanced toward his feet again. Staring at the television set. The glass had been smashed so intensely that only a few tiny shards were hanging onto the cracked and twisted plastic. Wires stuck out in odd directions...

He'd have never imagined that  _Antonio_ could do something like this. Antonio was the slightly stupid, always smiling, always happy one. Of course, he'd guessed that he would be upset about the little pest getting hurt, but this was beyond anything he'd ever imagined.

"Sí?" And suddenly a pair of too green, too calm eyes were staring straight at him from only a few inches away. They were too bright. Terrifyingly bright. "You'll promise that you won't ever hurt Lovi ever again. You won't even say anything mean to her ever again, sí?"

And all he could do was nod, his throat too dry, his stomach flipping like he was about to be sick. "S—sure."

"Good!" And suddenly this creepy, terrifying Antonio was gone, as if he hadn't been there at all. Leaving behind the usual Antonio, happy smile stretched across his lips. "Then everything's better, sí?"

"Y—yeah?"

Antonio just beamed in response, climbing back off the pile of rubble with the axe. "Good!"

Sadiq almost wondered if he'd just imagined that whole thing. Or, he would have wondered, if it weren't for the expression that suddenly crossed Antonio's face again as he looked back at the pile of rubble. Emerald eyes turning toward him again, again filled with something terrifying that made him want to run and cry and promise to never do anything mean ever again. "But Sadiq, it'd probably be good if you didn't tell your friends that I broke your clubhouse, sí? Since everything's okay now."

There was definitely a threat hidden in those deceptively-simple words. Sadiq hurriedly nodded in response, stomach twisting even more violently. They wouldn't believe him anyway. His new friends were probably going to think that he did this, since he was the only one who was supposed to know where the clubhouse even was.

How had he known that anyway? He suddenly wondered. And was about to open his mouth and ask when he was introduced by a happy "Adios!" and then Antonio had ducked under a bush and was gone. Like he hadn't even been there.

Leaving him behind in the silence. Standing in front of his friends' former secret clubhouse.


	22. Chapter 22

"Birdies can't drink tea, stupid."

Lovina had always known that her little sister wasn't near as smart as she was, but even she shouldn't be so silly that she'd think that birdies could drink tea. Tea was for people with funny accents like Arthur, not for little yellow birdies that would make cheeping noises at her and try to grab at her fingers when she reached for the cookies.

Feliciana immediately pouted at her words, reaching out and stroking the chick's head. "But Gilbird's a special bird! Gill said so!"

"No he isn't." Lovina crossed her arms over her chest and pouted right back at her sister. "He can't even fly! Birdies are supposed to be able to fly!"

"Ve~ but he's still special!" And now Feliciana actually looked like she were about to cry. "I like him!"

Lovina frowned in response, but decided to not argue anymore. Because it'd be annoying if Feli started crying. So instead, she reached forward and picked up her teacup, sipping at the funny-tasting liquid inside.

"Feli? Lovi?" And now both girls looked up, to see Gill's mommy standing on the back porch, smiling as she looked over the scene. "Sorry to interrupt your tea party, but I just finished making lunch."

Feliciana immediately jumped up from her seat and ran over to Gill's mommy, grabbing at her skirt and smiling up at her with a look of pure adoration. "Ve~ did you make pasta?"

She laughed, bending down and ruffling the little girl's hair. "Silly, we just had pasta last night. I made some of my special stew today and some sandwiches and, if you're a good girl, we can have cake for dessert."

"Yay~! Cake!" And that was all that Feliciana needed to hear to send her running straight into the house.

Gill's mommy laughed at that for a moment and then walked down to the table, gently lifting Lovina into her arms and placing a quick peck on her forehead when she arrived. "And how are you feeling, Lovi? Are you excited for cake?"

Lovina liked Gill's mommy; she was nice and would make her yummy food and didn't yell at her for getting her dress dirty like her mother did. Although she didn't understand how someone like her could be the mommy of the stupid potato and his crazy sister.

"I like cake," she answered after a moment, and then rested her head against the woman's shoulder. She smelled nice too. Like chocolate and the sort of pretty flowers that she liked to keep in a vase on top of the kitchen table.

She laughed, reaching up with her free hand to run her palm along Lovina's cheek. "Then we'll make sure that you get a nice big slice, maeuschen, all right?"

Lovina nodded slightly, closing her eyes as she relaxed into the warm, comforting presence that was currently holding her.

She didn't want to go back home. She didn't want to go home  _ever_. She liked it here... She liked getting kisses and hugs and having someone wash her hair when she took a bath—being very careful to not get soap in her eyes. And she liked it when Antonio's mamá would come over and take her and Feli and Antonio to the store, and she'd let them pick out what they'd eat that night.

And she liked it when Gill and Ludwig's daddy would tuck her and Feli into bed and then sit in a chair that was much too small for him and read bedtime stories—even if he did have a sort-of-scary voice; she'd gotten used to it and now found it comforting to hear him tell about children with breadcrumbs and scary witches. But the stories would always end up happy, so it was okay.

She would sometimes look over at their house next door, worried that someday her mommy would come through the front door and stomp over and force her to come home with her. She knew that her mother had come over to the house at one point; Gill's daddy had immediately taken her, Feli, Ludwig, and Gill out to the park and then they'd come back later to find Gill's mommy sitting at the kitchen table, scribbling violently at a sheet of paper.

They'd been put to bed early that night, which Gillian had complained about since she wanted to know 'What's wrong with Mutti? Why's Mutti angry? Are they going to take Lovi and Feli away? We should hide them somewhere!'

She didn't want to be taken away. She liked being here, cuddled against someone who was warm and soft and smelled pretty.

And suddenly Gill's mommy stopped walking, and the arm around the little girl tightened slightly.

"Leni," Gill's daddy called to them when they walked inside. "This is Mr. Roma. He's come here about the girls."

Lovina immediately jerked her head up at this, turning toward the kitchen table, where Gill's daddy was sitting with some strange man... A strange man with dark hair and a happy, stupid smile that sort of made her think of Antonio...

The strange man immediately rose to his feet, walking toward them and sticking out his hand. "Good morning, Signora Beilschmidt! I came as soon as I got your letter." His voice even sounded happy. Like Tonio's. And then he stared down at Lovina, who glared back as she gripped tightly at the fabric of Gill's mommy's shirt.

"You're their grandfather?" She sounded a little surprised, but her grip loosened slightly. Which was nice, because she'd been squeezing a little too hard.

"Sì. I'm sorry that it took me so long to get here. You see, I've been in Rome for the past three months and just arrived home this last weekend." His smile only widened as he reached out toward her. "And who is this beautiful little girl?"

"This is Lovina." Lovi flinched away from the hand and wrapped her arms around the woman's neck instead. She didn't like the scary strange man. Grandfather. She remembered that they'd said that she might go stay with her grandfather when he stopped hiding. But she didn't want to. She wanted to stay here. "Her sister is probably out playing with our son."

"Yes, I remember you said that there were two girls." Lovina glanced up at this, but then scowled when she met his happy smile. He just laughed. "Hello, Lovina. It's very nice to meet you. What happened to your leg?"

Lovina frowned and kicked her uninjured leg back and forth for a few seconds. "Fell down."

"She got lost in the woods and fell down an embankment a few weeks ago." And now Lovi was moved so she was facing Gill's mommy. And received a kiss on the forehead before she was set down on one of the empty seats. "I'll just call down the others and then we can have lunch, okay?" Lovina nodded in response, watching as she walked to the door and called up "Lunch!"

And it suddenly sounded as if a herd of angry elephants were stampeding down the stairs. The sound only stopped right before Gill burst through the doorway... Her hands, shirt, face, and hair all covered in various bright colours...

"Mutti! Mutti! You have to come see the painting Feli and I made! It's so awesomely awesome!" And now Feliciana showed up behind her. Also covered in various colours, although with her, it was mostly contained to her hands and shirt.

"Gillian!" And now her daddy jumped up from his seat and scooped her into his arms before she could touch anything. "What in the world did you  _do_?"

"Feli and me made art!" She giggled, and then seemed to notice the stranger who was now staring at her from the table with a rather amused expression. "Who's that, vati?"

Her daddy had reached up and was now running his fingers through her now multicoloured hair, looking as if he weren't sure what in the world he was supposed to do. "He's Feli and Lovi's grandfather. Now no more questions. You're going right in the bathtub."

"Aw, but vati~!"

"Don't complain. This is going to take forever to get out. How in the world did you get paint in your hair anyway?" And now he carried her back up the stairs, ignoring her whining about wanting cake.

And her mommy sighed, now glancing toward Feliciana, who was staring at the stranger with a curious expression. "Sorry about that. That was our daughter, Gillian. She's—a bit of a handful."

"I can tell." He chuckled, and then opened his arms toward her sister. "And you must be Feliciana."

Feli just stood there for a moment, eyeing him as if not entirely sure how to respond. Before deciding that he was nice and trustworthy and throwing herself into his arms, squealing in joy when he picked her up and set her on his lap.

"Ve~ hi! Gilly and I made pretty art! Do you wanna come see the pretty picture?"

Lovina really wanted to just reach across and smack her stupid sister for being stupid. But that would mean getting closer to the stranger guy who 'said' he was their grandfather.

"Well, Feli likes you." Gill's mommy was now scooping out a bowl of stew, which she brought over and set in front of Lovi, along with a little sandwich—Lovi could already see the slices of tomatoes sticking out of the sides. "Not that it's too hard to get Feli to like you. I'm sorry about your shirt, though. I'd better wash her up before she makes more of a mess..."

Her maybe-grandfather just laughed, shaking his head slightly. "No problem. If these two are going to be coming to live with me, I should probably start getting used to messes like this."

"Ve~ we're going to live with you?" And now Feliciana looked a little frightened by the sudden statement; immediately turning to look over at her sister, who ignored her and took a bite from her sandwich. Not really sure how to respond.

"Maybe." Gill's mommy walked around the table and now picked up Feliciana, carrying her over to and setting her down on the counter beside the sink. "We'll see. For right now, we're just going to have a lovely lunch, all right?"

And Feliciana immediately smiled and nodded. Completely trusting that everything would be okay, giggling as Gill's mommy used a towel to wipe at the paint smeared across her face.

While Lovi just frowned down at her sandwich. Not feeling near as comfortable about this as her sister.


	23. Chapter 23

"That's cheating! You can't be a wizard and a pirate!"

"Can too!"

"No, you can't!"

"Can too!"

Antonio had decided a long time ago that he had the most—to borrow Gill's word— _awesome_  friends ever. He figured that he could make this assertion since he'd seen lots of other people with friends, especially on the television, and none of them could even begin to compare with  _his_ friends.

Even if they could be very silly sometimes. Like now, as Gillian and Arthur were currently sitting next to each other on top of the monkey bars, arguing about whether Arthur was allowed to use magic when he was supposed to be a pirate.

Francis was currently resting with his head settled against his back, probably in an attempt to fall asleep. Antonio would have thought that he was already asleep if it weren't for the fact that he could feel fingers running through his hair, playing with his curls in a rather distracted fashion. Smoothing and twisting and sometimes scratching along his scalp in a way that actually felt really nice and relaxing.

And he saw Gillian jump up, immediately grabbing onto a nearby pole to keep herself from falling. Antonio felt his heart skip a panicked beat at that, but then it relaxed once she had steadied herself and exclaimed, "If you get to be a wizard-pirate, then I should be an awesome ninja-pirate!"

Arthur was scowling at the girl, crossing his arms over his chest as he shook his head violently. "No, you can't be a ninja-pirate!" And now he pointed over to the opposite side of the monkey-bars, where Antonio could see Kiku sitting next to a dozing-Heracles. Reading a book. Probably one of the backward comics that he liked so much. "The only one who can be a ninja-pirate is Kiku!"

Who immediately looked up at the sound of his name. His eyes flickering toward Arthur and Gillian before seeming to decide that he'd rather not get involved with whatever they were arguing about and instead returned to his book.

Antonio sighed happily and leaned his head slightly farther back so it was resting on top of Francis's. "Franny?"

"Mm?" He sounded like he was half-asleep. "Oui, Antoine?"

"Let's be best friends forever and ever, okay?"

And he could hear the soft chuckle in his friend's voice as he nodded his head slightly; Antonio could feel Francis's hair tickle against the nape of his neck, almost making him giggle. "Of course we will, Antoine."

"Stupid."

And Antonio was startled by the sudden exclamation from a very familiar, very irritated little voice coming from near his feet.

Lovina was currently standing in front of him, supported by the crutches that she'd recently learned how to use while she was in her cast. At first she'd hated them and refused to use them—until she'd realized that the wooden objects could serve as handy weapons when she was upset. Since then, she'd learned to live with the things.

And now Antonio noticed that she was dressed in probably the cutest, laciest, and pinkest dress that he'd ever seen. Which was surprisingly not covered in dirt yet. Meaning that she must have just arrived a few minutes ago.

"Hola, Lovi," he greeted her with a smile, immediately patting the seat next to him. "Why don't you come sit with Francis and me? Did your grandpa get you that pretty dress?"

She immediately scowled in response. Although she did hop forward and climb up to sit beside him, dropping her crutches carelessly into the dirt. "Stupid dress," she immediately complained, picking at the fabric in an irritated fashion.

Which was so cute! Antonio knew that she was starting to like her grandpa, little by little. At least partly because he kept buying her presents. And he'd given both her and Feliciana their own rooms—which he'd let them decorate however they wanted—in the house that he'd bought just a few streets away from the Beilschmidts. And both Lovi and Feli seemed so much happier now than they had before.

And it made him happy! Happy enough to reach right over and squeeze the little girl into a tight hug, ignoring her squeak of protest and immediate attempt to escape. "Aww~ you're so cute, Lovi~!"

"I'm going to put a curse on you if you don't quit it, Gillian Beilschmidt!"

And Antonio looked up again, toward where Gillian now seemed to be attempting to pry Arthur off of the monkey bars. She was tugging on his shirt and pulling backwards, while he clung to the bars and attempted to kick at her.

"You can't put a curse on awesome! I'll put a curse on  _you_!"

"Let go~! I  _can_  put a curse on you!"

Kiku looked like he was considering a move from his seat. Although, since that would require him waking up Heracles, Antonio rather doubted that he'd actually do it.

And now Antonio's gaze moved from Heracles and Kiku and he suddenly sat upright, earning an irritated grunt from Francis in response. As his eyes rested on someone who was sitting on a swing across the park, kicking his feet back and forth barely hard enough to move at all... Sitting there completely alone...

And he felt his stomach twist nervously for a moment. His voice almost cracking as he leaned backwards slightly, "Hey, Franny?"

"Quoi?" Francis sounded more awake now. Probably since he'd suddenly been jerked from his nap when his headrest moved without warning.

"Look over there."

Antonio could feel Francis move his head slightly to look in the direction that he'd pointed. And then he sat up as well. "Sadiq? ...Where are his new amis?"

Antonio didn't respond, his usual smile slipping from his face as he stared at the other boy. Sadiq looked so sad. Sad and lonely. Maybe his other friends had gotten mad at him about the clubhouse and decided that he couldn't play with them anymore. Maybe now he was all alone.

And part of Antonio's mind immediately felt happy. Served him right. He'd been mean to Lovi. He deserved to be sad and not have friends. Lovi had gotten hurt because of him...

But, then...

Sadiq was just playing with the dirt now, pushing it into piles with his feet. Refusing to look up at anyone. And everyone else was ignoring him, not even noticing how sad and lonely he looked.

But, then...

Did he really deserve it? Sure, Sadiq was mean sometimes. But... being all alone...

And it wasn't a conscious decision. Or, at least, it didn't feel like a conscious decision to Antonio. As he was just suddenly on his feet, taking the first step toward the other boy.

And he was vaguely aware of questions coming from Francis and Lovina. But he didn't bother to answer. As he just took another step toward the figure sitting all alone. And then another. And another.

And he was now standing in front of the boy, who lifted his face. And Antonio saw an expression—a mixture of surprise and fear—cross over his face. Before it was replaced by sadness and he dipped his head down again.

"What do you want?"

"Why aren't you playing with your amigos, Sadiq?" Antonio hesitated for a moment before he decided to sit down on the swing beside the other boy, earning a surprised look in response.

"They—they got mad at me... They thought that I ruined the clubhouse... And they said that they didn't want to play with me anymore." He kicked his feet back a few more times. And Antonio felt his stomach twist slightly in guilt.

He hadn't wanted to make Sadiq this sad... He'd just wanted to make sure that he wasn't mean to Lovi ever again. And...

"I wanna play."

And both boys immediately looked up, startled by the exclamation coming from the space in front of them. Where a little girl on crutches was standing, glaring at them with a rather put-upon expression.

"Stupids! Play with me!" And now she stomped her good foot against the ground, flashing them her best annoyed glare. Which was very annoyed, as Lovina practiced often.

Although, it didn't have its desired effect, as all Antonio could do was stare back at her in surprise. 'Stupids'? Wait, did she mean both of them?

"You..." He hesitated for a moment. And then continued. "You want Sadiq and me to play with you, Lovi?"

She nodded, pointing back toward where Gillian and Arthur had stopped their argument and were now staring at them with rather confused expressions, her expression revealing that she thought his question was stupid as it should be completely obvious what she wanted. "Pirates!"

...And for another moment, Antonio wasn't sure how to respond. Lovi wasn't mad? But she was the one who'd gotten hurt... And she'd been the one who had been out in the woods. All alone. And scared and...

And he'd thought she'd be angry. And would hate him forever.

And...

And he suddenly smiled, jumping up and semi-tackling the little girl with a massive bear hug. Again, ignoring her protests in favour of smothering her with love as he laughed and snuggled against her. "Okay, Lovi. We'll play pirates with Arthur and Gill. You can even be the captain, okay?"

And she managed to squirm away, flashing him a glare before nodding in confirmation of her approval. And then she pointed toward Sadiq, who looked completely confused... As if he couldn't believe that she'd just said that  _he_ could play. "And I'll beat up your ship, meanie stupidface!"

"I—I can play? But..."

And Antonio didn't give him a chance to finish that statement, as he instead grabbed his hand and yanked him to his feet. "Of course you can play! You said that you'd be nice, so now you can come play with us!" And he turned toward Lovina with a wide smile. "And Lovi can beat up your ship, right?"

Which was answered by one of her rare, almost Gill-like, mischievous smiles. "Sì!"


End file.
